"LITTLE HALF-BROTHER" 59 



Africa, and even Abyssinia far to the North. Like 

 Yiddish, which is a conglomeration or polyglot of 

 Hebrew, Bohemian, German, Slavic and Spanish, it 

 is made up of native dialects and Arabian terms, 

 first stirred into a lingual goulash by the old Arab 

 slave traders who used to range these parts, driving 

 their chained gangs of blacks before them down 

 to Mombasa where they were shipped to all parts 

 of the world. The purest Swahili is spoken around 

 Zanzibar and has its grammar, newspaper, magazines 

 and more permanent literature. The tribes like 

 these Kikuyus which we met by the trail used a sort 

 of bastard or cockney Swahili; but it could be easily 

 imderstood by any white who had been for some time 

 in the country and who was at all observing and 

 attentive. 



To this dialect or African Yiddish are daily being 

 added new terms, due to the advent of Ein*opeans. 

 For instance, we have now statione, post-officey — they 

 seem to like this Italian-like suffix — for station and 

 post office. And we had no sooner started our 

 engines again than Abdullah called out to Osa that 

 there was something the matter with her "motor- 

 car's foot." She had a flat. 



These Kikuyus and their herds, and the little 

 dukas, or native stores, sugar-loaf in shape, thatched 

 with straw, or made out of hammered-out petrol tins 

 and offering for sale penny's worths of sugar and 



