52 HALF-CASTE MORALE. [chap, il 



character of them all, was unfitted to head the others, 

 from his ignorance of oxen and horses, and the whole 

 of that very work that I especially wanted a head 

 servant to undertake for me ; I therefore 'made him 

 cook and housekeeper, and gave him the principal 

 charge of the stores. Timboo had attached himseK 

 to me from the first, as henchman and valet-de-chambre 

 — that is to say, if I called out for anything, he would 

 not let anybody but himself bring it — and he made my 

 bed and saddled my horse, and so forth. I had 

 intended Gabriel for that sort of work, but the poor 

 lad was quite bewildered and frightened. He was also a 

 great scamp. In Cape Town he had been the most 

 impudent, self-possessed, and good-looking of young 

 rogues, but the hard work and sense of anxiety quite 

 dashed his spirits and liis assurance, and he had 

 relapsed into a timid frightened boy, and used to talk 

 to the men in a piteous way about his mother. 

 Listening to the conversation of the men at our 

 bivouacs, I was quite shocked at the low tone of 

 honour that pervaded it, and yet they must be taken as 

 above the average of the working class in Cape Town. 

 They were perpetually talking of the prison there, 

 which they literally seemed to consider as a kind of 

 club or head quarters, where a person had an excellent 

 opportmiity of meeting his friends and of forming 

 fresh intimacies, but where he was at the same time sub- 

 jected to considerable inconvenience. They positively 

 reckoned dates by the epochs in which either they or 

 their mutual friends had been confined. They had no 

 shame in alluding to these matters, even when I was 



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