INTELLIGENCE SCOUT 98 



Next morning I paid a visit to my old friend 

 Mafoota, who was startled at the sight of a 

 mounted man in uniform riding up. He said that 

 at first he thought it was the " Square Heads/' 

 concerning whom at that time he lived in con- 

 siderable anxiety. He had no reason, of course, 

 to expect to see me ; he was not even aware 

 that I had returned to Africa, and the last he had 

 seen of me was a rather sorry spectacle bandaged 

 up and making for civilisation on an old mule. 



To get boys and fix things up generally, we had 

 to spend several days at Sepango, and this allowed 

 plenty of time for some good yarns with Mafoota. 

 On one occasion we were discussing the lion that 

 had visited him (mentioned on earlier pages), 

 and the old man reckoned that this particular lion 

 exploded a number of theories. For instance, 

 it is said that white clothes frighten a lion, but 

 this fellow brushed one white towel away himself 

 with his paw when breaking into the donkey's 

 kraal. Then, too, the only donkey in the kraal 

 with a bell was the first to be seized and killed 

 by this lion — so much for bells as lion-scarers. 

 The old man told me also that his boy, whom the 

 lion had seized and bitten, had, when quite young, 

 been seized by and escaped from a crocodile. 

 " I told his mother," said Mafoota, V that he must 

 be God's child all right." 



On the second day, whilst sitting yarning 

 together, seven natives appeared, and Mafoota, 

 who was acting as a sort of forwarding and inter- 



