known it would cost him his life, he could no more 

 have resisted it than have resisted breathing. 



When the meat was there I gave it, and he would 

 sit by the fire for hours eating incredible quantities 

 cutting it off in slabs and devouring it when not much 

 more than warmed. But it was not always possible to 

 satisfy him in that way ; meat was expensive in the 

 towns and often we had none at all at the waggons. 

 Then the night became one long torment : the spells 

 of rest might extend from a quarter of an hour to an 

 hour ; then from the dead sleep of downright weariness 

 I would be roused by the deep far-reaching voice ; 

 " Funa 'nyama, Inkos " wove itself into my dreams, 

 and waking I would find Jim standing beside me 

 remorselessly urging the same request in Zulu, in 

 broken English, and in Dutch " My wanta meat, 

 Baas," "Wil fleisch krij. Baas," and the old, old, 

 hatefully familiar explanation of the difference between 

 " man's food " and " picanins" food," interspersed 

 with grandiose declarations that he was " Makokela 

 Jim Makokel'," who " catchum lion 'live." Sometimes 

 he would expand this into comparisons between himself 

 and the other boys, much to their disadvantage ; and 

 on these occasions he invariably worked round to his 

 private grievances, and expressed his candid opinions 

 of Sam. 



Sam was the boy whom I usually set to do Jim's 

 neglected work. He was a ' mission boy,' that is 

 a Christian kaffir very proper in his behaviour, but 

 a weakling and not much good at work. Jim would 

 enumerate all Sam's shortcomings ; how he got his 

 oxen mixed up on dark nights and could not pick them 



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