THE SEFARI 49 



of the train, that is carrying all your party to some wayside 

 station. It may be he has so far escaped you entirely, as 

 he surely has the ticket collector, and your first sight of 

 him, is as fagged out, he totters along, carrying a much 

 too heavy load for his little boy's body, far behind the rear- 

 most askari, on some long, hot, marching day. Thus it 

 was I first came to know him. 



"Is he a little fellow following his father?" I asked. 

 "Oh, no, he is just a toto." To my ignorance on that 

 my first sefari, this meant nothing at all. I was soon to 

 learn. The boy on that occasion was on the point of col- 

 lapse, and, fortunately, I had determined to walk myself 

 at the rear of the column, as the way was long, water dis- 

 tant, and the lava rock we were traversing terribly hard 

 for all our feet. The boy was not more than fourteen 

 years old at most, but had been ill or underfed, for he 

 lacked the robustness of totos generally. I halted the men, 

 and asked who claimed him, and how he came to be carrying, 

 as he was, a man's load, not less. Five or six big porters 

 came up. Still I was mystified, and only after some time 

 did I learn that I was supposed to have no responsbility 

 for him at all. He was not on the "strength "of the sefari. 

 He was just a toto, hired by the aforesaid five or six to do 

 their little jobs around camp, carry water, cook food, 

 and carry at least a part of their potio. Had he a father ? 

 No. A mother ? Doubtful. Generally these little black 

 mites are orphans. Many such there are, alas! They 

 hang around government stations claiming no one, 

 recognized by none. In some sore strait some helpless 

 woman laid him at a stranger's hut door, to live or die 

 as it might be. Many of the totos show too plainly traces 

 of that early disaster. Rickety, consumptive, half-starved 

 atoms of humanity, who yet face with an African's quite 

 wonderful cheeriness, the chances of sefari life, because 

 it offers them plentiful food and some sort of a home. 



