MY FELLOW SCOUTS 101 



messenger from Sesheke, who caught me with a 

 special despatch from the C.G., said in answer 

 to our inquiries that he had seen no dog, but 

 only two lions eating something on the track. 

 What the something was he could not say, but 

 I am afraid that meal was the end of Bingo, for 

 he never turned up again. 



Three days from Johnson's camp we struck 

 the kraal of Maruta, a particularly fat and unpre- 

 possessing Mombakush chief who bears a bad 

 character in connection with the stealing and 

 selling of female Maquengo children, a traffic 

 which still goes on in these parts. I had him 

 called before me after putting on, to be duly 

 impressive, my B.S.A. uniform — the first uniform 

 of any nationality seen in that district, I should 

 think — and solemnly warned him that the English 

 had a long, long arm, that already a black mark 

 was against him, and that a continuation of his 

 evil practices would bring sudden retribution and 

 extinction upon him one of these days. I think 

 he really got quite a bad fright, especially as 

 Johnson, unknown to me at that time, had given 

 him a similar warning, punctuated, I heard after- 

 wards, by the discharge of his Browning alongside 

 the old ruffian's ear. 



During our time out there we looked into this 

 slave trading. The Portuguese had never had 

 the slightest authority themselves in these parts, 

 and the practice has been for the petty chiefs to 

 get hold of the girl children from the little Ma- 



