ELMENTEITA IN FEBRUARY 
149 
our porters, a N’yumwezi named Ibrahim, died rather 
suddenly. The apparent cause was inflammation of the 
throat, rendering him speechless, nor had we either the 
knowledge or the means to alleviate it. The first in¬ 
timation was brought us during the afternoon ; we tried 
such simple remedies as we had, but at seven o’clock, 
just as we were sitting down to dinner, w T ord w 7 as sent 
in that the poor fellow was dead. 
He was buried at dawn outside the camp, the grave 
being five feet deep and the body, wrapt in his blanket, 
placed sideways in a narrower trench dug some eighteen 
inches deeper. This the men covered with piles of thorns 
and brushwood before filling in the earth, the whole 
being finally heaped over with stones. That night 
hyenas and jackals kept up an unearthly concert all 
around the camp, but the grave remained intact in the 
morning. 
A few days later, having in the meantime been 
obliged, by an attack of fever, as below mentioned, to 
abandon our intended expedition to Laikipia, w r e repassed 
the spot and found that poor Ibrahim’s remains had 
been dug out by hyenas. 
An incident in this connection illustrates what watchful 
care the Colonial Government exercises over the rights 
and interests of our black fellow-subjects. Months after¬ 
wards, while paying-off our safari at Mombasa, I had 
entered, on the official discharge form, this man as 
“dead”; another as “missing—believed to be dead.” 
Objection, however, was taken, and further explanation 
required, especially the precise dates, lest some balance 
of wages might remain due to their executors. Now 
the contingency of African savages possessing such 
modern refinements as “ executors ” had certainly not 
occurred to me, and the suggestion almost provoked a 
sense of the ludicrous. The grim picture opposite gives, 
I fear, a more practical view of those functionaries. 
These trustees may truly be said to be “ dealing with 
the whole estate,” since on totting up accounts it 
appeared that poor Ibrahim had not run off his advance- 
