16 
IN AFKICA 
a-playing and fireworks popping, when the ship 
arrived with the new executive. 
There were also several officials with high-sound¬ 
ing titles who were going out to their stations in 
German East Africa. These gentlemen were mostly 
accompanied by wives and babies and between them 
they imparted a spirited scene of domesticity to the 
life on shipboard. The effect of a man wheeling a 
baby carriage about the deck was to make one 
think of some peaceful place far from the deck of a 
steamer. 
Little Tim was the life of the ship. He was a lit¬ 
tle boy aged eighteen months, who began life at 
Sombra, in Nyassaland, British Central Africa. 
Just now he was returning from England with his 
father and mother. Little Tim had curly hair, 
looked something like a brownie, and was brimming 
over with energy and curiosity every moment that 
he was awake. If left alone five minutes he was 
quite likely to try to climb up the rigging. Conse¬ 
quently he was never left alone, and the decks were 
constantly echoing with a fond mother’s voice beg¬ 
ging him not to “do that,” or to “come right here, 
Tim.” One of Tim’s chief diversions was to divest 
himself of all but his two nearest articles of wear 
and sit in the scuppers with the water turned on. A 
crowd of passengers was usually grouped around 
him and watched his manoeuvers with intense inter¬ 
est. He was probably photographed a hundred 
times and envied by everybody on board. It was so 
fearfully hot in the Red Sea that to be seated in 
