IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA 119 



While you perform a five-minutes' ablution outside the 

 door, the tent behind you has come down as by magic ; 

 and even the canvas wash-basin will be whipped away 

 from beneath your yet dripping person. Breakfast is 

 set out beneath yon shady tree, and ere a hasty meal is 

 finished, the whole camp-outfit is ready to move, packs 

 completed, burdens assorted and assigned, each man 

 knowing his own. The whole operation has been per- 

 formed with a degree of smartness, method and silent 

 efficiency that surprises. Men such as these represent 

 valuable material. 



Similar scenes will be observed on arrival at the next 

 camping-point. Without a word said, one's own tent will 

 have been erected complete — ground-sheets laid, bed set 

 up, table and chairs arrayed in a grove hard by — all 

 within a few short minutes. The brushwood over half- 

 an-acre has been cleared away with " matchets." 

 Meanwhile, the cook and his mates have their fires 

 alight, and dinner preparing ; while already one sees 

 a fatigue-party returning with burdens of wood and 

 water. 



One morning, however, occurs a hitch. The head- 

 man desires to see the " Bwana Khubwa " (Great Master). 

 Silently — since we speak not his tongue — he tallies off', 

 with taps of his M'piqui staff, thirty-four burdens, all 

 laid out in one straight row. Then he indicates that there 

 are but twenty-six porters. A problem to wrestle with. 

 Threes into two won't go, and never would ; and rule-of- 

 three helps no more. There are two plans : — (1) To 

 repack the thirty-four burdens into twenty-six. This 

 proposal is received in speechful silence. (2) To leave 

 the surplus stores here in charge of a porter or two, with 

 a couple of askaris, till we can send back relay-gangs from 

 the next camp to fetch them. 



Long ere the knotty point is solved our chaii^s and 

 breakfast-table have melted into packs, and all its para- 

 phernalia vanished wdthin the spacious "cook-box." 

 " Hurry up," resounds through the camp. " All ready," 

 shouts the swarthy Neapara (the only English words he 



