16 IN AFRICA 



a-playing and fireworks popping, when the ship 

 arrived with the new executive. 



There were also several officials with high-sound- 

 ing titles who were going out to their stations in 

 German East Africa. These gentlemen were mostly 

 accompanied by wives and babies and between them 

 they imparted a spirited scene of domesticity to the 

 life on shipboard. The effect of a man wheeling a 

 baby carriage about the deck was to make one 

 think of some peaceful place far from the deck of a 

 steamer. 



Little Tim was the life of the ship. He was a lit- 

 tle boy aged eighteen months, who began life at 

 Sombra, in Nyassaland, British Central Africa. 

 Just now he was returning from England with his 

 father and mother. Little Tim had curly hair, 

 looked something like a brownie, and was brimming 

 over with energy and curiosity every moment that 

 he was awake. If left alone five minutes he was 

 quite likely to try to climb up the rigging. Conse- 

 quently he was never left alone, and the decks were 

 constantly echoing with a fond mother's voice beg- 

 ging him not to "do that," or to "come right here, 

 Tim." One of Tim's chief diversions was to divest 

 himself of all but his two nearest articles of wear 

 and sit in the scuppers with the water turned on. A 

 crowd of passengers was usually grouped around 

 him and watched his manoeuvers with intense inter- 

 est. He was probably photographed a hundred 

 times and envied by everybody on board. It was so 

 fearfully hot in the Red Sea that to be seated in 



