ABDI AND ABDULLAH 
35 9 
would find him as trim and clean at the finish as 
though he had just stepped out of a bandbox. 
Jumma had the happy faculty of never looking 
rumpled, a trick which I tried hard to learn, but 
all in vain. He was as black as ebony, yet his fea¬ 
tures were like those of a Caucasian; in fact, he 
strikingly resembled an old Chicago friend. 
Among our porters there were many types of 
features, and in a curious way many of them resem¬ 
bled people we had known at home. One porter 
had the eyes and expression of a young north-side 
girl; another had the walk and features of a prom¬ 
inent young Chicago man; and so on. 
Saa Sitaa was one of our brightest porters. His 
name means “Six O’clock” in Swahili, six o’clock 
in the native reckoning being our noon and our mid¬ 
night. Just why he was given this significant name 
I never discovered. Perhaps he was born at that 
hour. It always used to amuse me to hear Abdi 
calling out, “Enjani hapa , Saa Sitaa 3 '—“Come 
here, Six O’clock.” 
Baa Baa was a porter who always used to sing a 
queer native chant in which those words were pre¬ 
dominant. He would sing it by the hour while on 
the march, and before long his real name was re¬ 
placed by the new one. Henceforth he will, no 
doubt, continue to be Baa Baa. He was promoted 
from porter to camera-bearer, but one day he could 
not be found when most needed, and he was reduced 
back to the ranks. I never heard him sing again. 
His heart was broken. 
