might or might not prove to be entirely 
meaningless. The headmen carried no bur¬ 
dens, and the tent boys hardly anything, 
while the saises walked with the spare 
dorses. In addition to the canonical and 
required costume of blouse or jersey and 
drawers, each porter wore a blanket, and 
usually something else to which his soul in¬ 
clined. It might be an exceedingly shabby 
coat; it might be, of all things in the world, 
an umbrella, an article for which they had 
a special attachment. Often I would see 
a porter, who thought nothing whatever 
of walking for hours at midday under the 
■equatorial sun with his head bare, trudging 
along with solemn pride either under an 
open umbrella, or carrying the umbrella 
(tied much like Mrs. Gamp’s) in one hand, 
as a wand of dignity. Then their head-gear 
varied according to the fancy of the indi¬ 
vidual. Normally it was a red fez, a kind 
of cap only used in hot climates, and ex¬ 
quisitely designed to be useless therein be¬ 
cause it gives absolutely no protection from 
the sun. But one would wear a skin cap; 
Vol. XLVI.—76 
another would suddenly put one or more 
long feathers in his fez; and another,.dis¬ 
carding the fez, would revert to some purely 
savage head-dress which he would wear 
with equal gravity whether it were, in our 
eyes, really decorative or merely comic. One 
such head-dress, for instance, consisted of 
the skin of the top of a zebra’s head, with 
the two ears. Another was made of the 
skins of squirrels, with the tails both stick¬ 
ing up and hanging down. Another con¬ 
sisted of a bunch of feathers woven into the 
hair, which itself was pulled out into strings 
that were stiffened with clay. Another was 
really too intricate for description because 
it included the man’s natural hair, some 
strips of skin, and an empty tin can. 
If it were a long journey and we broke 
it by a noonday halt, or if it were a short 
journey and we reached camp ahead of the 
safari, it was interesting to see the long 
file of men approach. Here and there, lead¬ 
ing the porters, scattered through the line, 
or walking alongside, were the askaris, 
the rifle-bearing soldiers. They were not 
653 
