76 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



of her unrewarded servants, and she will find 

 that of these no branch of her labourers has 

 striven so hard and so honourably as those quiet, 

 unassuming men who lead their lonely lives in 

 the remotest corners of Africa. 



Cut off from mankind, severed from their 

 kith and kin, surrounded by a host of savages, 

 beset by a multitude of troubles and temptations, 

 the lot of the Central African Native Commissioner 

 is one which few of their stay-at-home critics 

 can ever realize. 



Let us turn again for a minute to the little 

 clean-swept square in front of the Boma, where 

 the flag lazily unfolds itself as the hot breath of 

 the tropics wafts through the air, day after day 

 and year after year. The red and white and blue 

 bring to the resident of those grass-thatched 

 houses the memory of the Homeland, and act 

 as an inspiration to him in more than one battle 

 which it is the lot of all the solitary souls of 

 Central Africa to fight. He is probably a public- 

 school man and a product of Oxford or Cambridge, 

 as you would quickly realize were you to peep 

 into the privacy of one of those low-eaved rooms. 

 Photographs of old house and college clubs, 

 rugger caps and silver cups are keeping company 

 with rhinoceros horns and leopard skins. There 

 are neat little bookshelves of novels and a table 

 littered with Sketches and Fields — ties with the 

 throbbing life of the Motherland. 



Yesterday, to-day, to-morrow, next week, 

 next month are all the same to the subject of 

 this sketch. There are crimes to be punished, 

 petty disputes to be settled, the sick to be tended, 

 the reports to a far-away administrator to be 

 written. A native chief comes respectfully into 



