CHAPTER XV. 
Taveta—Attack on a Swahili caravan—The loss of a wife—Arrival of the 
Bishop of Mombasa—Domestic troubles—The start for Mount Meru 
—Abundance of large game—B——’s narrow escape—Kalie forest— 
The Wa-kahe—Mutinous porters—Short rations—The Mount Meru 
trip abandoned on account of the Masai—A ludicrous Masai scare— 
The Sogonoi mountains. 
When we paraded our men, the morning after return¬ 
ing to Taveta, to take their rifles into store, half of 
them asked to be allowed to return to the coast as 
they declared the work was too hard. They had certainly 
had a rough time of it, as, nearly every day, we each 
requisitioned a following fifteen men, in order to get 
home the meat we shot. 
The Swahili porter is an excellent hard-working 
fellow on a march, and will carry his load day after day 
for any distance without grumbling ; but when once 
a journey is over and you are settled in a camp, no 
matter for how long, he expects to have nothing to 
do beyond making a boma, and, if the weather is wet, 
building his own grass hut: this accomplished, he is 
only prepared to idle about as a gentleman at large, 
and to eat, sleep, dance, and sing. Such a programme 
being quite unsuited to our requirements (for we did 
not want to travel any very long distances), we ex¬ 
plained to them that they must work for us in camp, 
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