152 THE LAND OF THE LION 



inefficient and expensive Hindus. I learned to honour and 

 esteem many of them for what I saw they were faithful, 

 kindly men, living honestly up to the light given them. 



There was an immense porter I had, who carried the 

 cook's bath this description may be misleading, for 

 nothing that I could do, ever succeeded in inducing little 

 Peter to wash anything but his hands, but his bath it was 

 called, and over it and its contents he exercised a despot's 

 rule. All the odds and ends and left overs, the food for 

 the next hurried meal, sugar, potatoes, bacon, and Worces- 

 tershire sauce (I may as well stay my hand), all these, 

 and numberless others, were ever to be found in Peter's 

 bath. All our cooking paraphernalia, from the big kettle 

 to the iron soup ladle, frying pan, coffee pots, baking pans 

 for bread and the like, filled high up this immense receptacle. 

 The most awkward and unwieldy load in the sefari. My 

 big porter carried this load always at the head of the sefari. 

 The moment he reached camp and laid his burden down, 

 he was off to get wood for the cook's fire a purely volun- 

 tary act on his part. For the cook's boys, not the head 

 porter, whose rank is high among the men, has this allotted 

 duty to perform. He marched all day in a coat that fitted 

 his stalwart six feet two inches well. It was a clerical coat 

 with regulation high upstanding collar, buttoning tightly 

 across the breast. Under this quite non-tropical and very 

 English garment, he wore the regulation porter's sweater. 

 This was on the march, and in exceedingly hot weather! 



As the evening fell one of the askaris would take up, 

 as usual, his place by my fire. I had four of these native 

 soldiers, their height varying from about five feet nine inches, 

 to five feet. Short or long, these gentlemen invariably 

 turned up clad in that unmistakable clerical coat. Its 

 tails dragging on the ground almost, when the little men 

 stood up. 



During the heat of the day its owner claimed it. Dur- 



