SEEKING ROMANTIC ADVENTURES. 
77 
He was just a toto, hired by the aforesaid five or six to do their little 
jobs around camp, carry water, cook food, and carry at least a part 
of their potio. Had he a father? No. A mother? Doubtful. 
Generally these little black mites are orphans. 
Many such there are, alas! They hang round government sta¬ 
tions, claiming no one, recognized by none. In some sore strait 
some helpless woman laid him at a stranger’s hut door, to live or 
HOUSE BUILDING IN AFRICA. 
die as it might be. Many of the totos show too plainly traces of that 
early disaster. Rickety, consumptive, half-starved atoms of human¬ 
ity, who yet face with an African’s quite wonderful cheeriness the 
chances of safari life, because it offers them plentiful food and 
some sort of a home. Others there are of them, of course, who 
are in a far better condition, whose mothers have died, and who 
come along with their fathers. 
