434 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
for I had felt that the least I could do in gratitude for their 
good behaviour and kindness during my illness was to give 
them such cloth as they required without—as is customary— 
entering it against them. Any extra presents, too, were much 
better appreciated in that form, given up country where little 
additions to their fare could be obtained by these means ; and 
though in particular cases one felt it a duty to add something 
to the amount actually due, as an acknowledgment of special 
services, the conviction that such liberality is thrown away 
destroys the pleasure of bestowing rewards of the kind, and I 
think to do so is really a mistake, and, so far from being 
valued, tends to lower one in the opinion of the average 
Swahili. 
The time to give is when they have nothing : then they are 
capable of gratitude ; but ten, twenty, or fifty rupees more or 
less when their hands are already full of more than they can 
eat in the next week, they are incapable of feeling any concern 
about. Probably in a month the money will all be gone—a 
month of luxury and licence, as they know it : then one 
rupee will be thankfully received. By that time or a little 
later most of them will be ready to “ write on ” again for 
another expedition. One gets fond of one’s men, and proud 
of them when they are good ones, as mine were ; and I was 
sorry not to be able to engage them again before they had 
drifted into other service. 
I fear the fact that my journey was attended with so few 
serious difficulties or privations detracts from its interest to 
others ; but it is a source of considerable satisfaction to me 
to think that my men never suffered from either hunger, thirst, 
or disease ; that they got their regular ration daily, without 
our having ever raided or taken anything from the natives by 
force ; that they carried their loads willingly, cheerfully, and 
without suffering; and that, with the exception of the two 
whose tragic loss I had to mourn, I brought them all back, 
safe, sound, and happy, to Mombasa. They on their part had 
