A PLEA FOR THE NATIVE 387 



in Uganda and British Central Africa. In British Central 

 Africa things are dearer, so he gets his potio and ten rupees 

 a month. 



So much for the African porter. The longer I knew 

 him, the more I liked and honoured him. He is far indeed 

 from being a hopelessly "lazy savage." I learned to 

 respect him as a man who sets himself to earn the money he 

 is paid, who gives what he promises to give and gives it, 

 on the whole, ungrudgingly. But I grew to wonder increas- 

 ingly at the pent-up stores of energy within him. My 

 porters recuperated quickly, even when they were very 

 severely exhausted at the close of a long and possibly 

 waterless march. No white man's head or shoulders 

 could possibly have endured the strain laid on theirs. 

 They would lie down for a few moments and a few 

 moments seemed enough then, without orders, in the 

 vast majority of cases, the remaining work was undertaken, 

 and that work was considerable. Much tent pitching, a 

 hard and difficult task, large piles of wood to be cut, with 

 worse than indifferent axes and pangas (native knives), a 

 platform of logs and scrub to be laid for the loads so as 

 to keep them above the damp ground, and be it remem- 

 bered there is no such thing as soft wood in Africa, for 

 the softest wood there is much tougher than our oak. When 

 cut, too, the wood had often to be carried for a distance of 

 more than a mile; then there are bomas of thorn scrub for 

 the mules and donkeys, and lastly the work to be done 

 for themselves, tent-pitching, wood-gathering, and cooking. 

 The day had begun at 4.30 A. M., the big meal of the day 

 would not be over till seven at night, and surely the sefari 

 has done enough to use up its energy. But no, far from it: 

 in the centre of the camp burns the bwana's fire, where 

 the askari stand on guard in a wide horse-shoe curve around 

 it, the porters' fires are lit, and little yellow spires of flame 

 rise with scarcely a waver heavenward in the windless, 



