THE WICKED WHITE. 



239 



ordered to elect one of their number, named the youth 

 Twanigana, who had brought with him a large gang. 

 But the plague of the party, a hideous, puckered, and 

 scowling old man who had called himself " Muzungu 

 Mbaya," or the " Wicked White," so far prevailed that 

 at the first halt Twanigana, with his blushing honours 

 in the shape of a scarlet waistcoat fresh upon him, was 

 •found squatting solus under a tree, the rest of the party 

 having mutinously preceded him. I halted at once 

 and recalled the porters, who, after a due interval of 

 murmuring, reappeared. And subsequently, by inva- 

 riably siding with the newly-made Kirangozi, and by 

 showing myself ready to enforce obedience by any means 

 and every means, I gave the long-legged and weak- 

 minded youth, who was called " Gopa-Gopa " — " Funk- 

 stick" — on account of his excessive timidity, a little 

 confidence, and reduced his unruly followers to all the 

 discipline of which their race is capable. 



As we were threatened with want of water on the way, 

 I prepared for that difficulty by packing a box with 

 empty bottles, which, when occasion required, might be 

 filled at the best springs. The Zemzemiyah or travel- 

 ling canteen of the East African is everywhere a long- 

 necked gourd, slung to the shoulder by a string. But 

 it becomes offensive after a short use, and it can never 

 be entrusted to servant, slave, or porter without its 

 contents being exhausted before a mile is measured. 



By these arrangements, the result of that after- 

 wisdom which some have termed fools' wit, I com- 

 menced the down march under advantages, happy as a 

 " bourgeois" of trappers in the joyous pays sauvage. I 

 have detailed perhaps to a wearisome length the pre- 

 parations for the march. But the success of such ex- 

 peditions mainly depends upon the measures adopted 



