MY SERVANTS. 



131 



lest the breath of dawn should visit them too roughly. 

 Idleness marked them for her own: messmates and sworn 

 brothers ; they made at the halt huts out of hail, lest 

 they should be called to do work. As a rule, however, 

 Englishmen have the art of spoiling Eastern servants : 

 we begin with the utmost stretch of exertion, and we 

 expect this high pressure system to last. Of course the 

 men's energies are soon exhausted, their indolence and 

 apathy contrast with their former activity ; we conceive 

 dislikes to them, and we end by dismissing them. This, 

 however, was not the case with Bombay and Mabruki. 

 They returned with us to Zanzibar, and we parted a 

 Vaimable, especially with the former, who, after a some- 

 what protracted fit of the " blue devils," became once 

 more, what he before had been, a rara avis in the lands, 

 an active servant and an honest man. 



Regard for the Indian perusers of these pages, who 

 know by experience how " banal " a character is the half- 

 caste oriental Portuguese, prevents my offering any- 

 thing but a sketch of Valentine A. and Gaetano B. 

 I had hired them at Bombay for Co.'s rs. 20 per 

 mensem, besides board and lodging. Scions of that 

 half Pariah race which yearly issues from Goa, Da- 

 man and Diu to gather rupees as u cook boys," dry- 

 nurses, and " buttrels," in wealthy British India, the 

 hybrids had their faults: a pride of caste, and a con- 

 tempt for Turks and heathen, heretics and infidels, 

 which often brought them to grief ; a fondness for acting 

 triton amongst the minnows ; a certain disregard for the 

 seventh commandment, in the matter of cloth and 

 clothes, medicines and provisions ; a constitutional re- 

 pugnance to " Signior Sooth ;" a wastefulness of other 

 men's goods, and a peculiar tenacity of their own ; a de- 

 ficiency of bodily strength and constitutional vigour ; a 



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