with C. L. K. and fifty rounds of cartridges, was my immediate
attendant. The higher ape, whose duties were now to
be those of a cook and royal dishwasher, had a load that
could not be considered trifling, especially as he carried on
his head so many ornaments in the shape of a large and
wonderfully worked hat, adorned with long feathers, his
lower parts being enveloped in a shirt which I had given
him, and which reached nearly to his heels. Besides this
natural burden, he carried my shot gun, upon which were
hanging a small kettle, two tin plates, two axle grease pots
(now used for cooking in place of a cast-iron pot), a small
gridiron (a Buluwayo production, suspiciously like an old
preventer of rubbish in the mouth of a drain), and two tin
bowls for tea, for ours was a teetotal caravan. John informed
me that this itinerant kitchen had a love affair on, so that
we should have to keep an eye upon him in case he should
elope.
Personally I carried a compass, watch, and telescope, the
latter having an unusual and melancholy interest through
its being the last to signal the fading lights of the unfortunate
Captain before she went down in the Bay of Biscay.
I also carried a small Matabeli stabbing assegai, which
Karemba, with throbs of sanguinary delight, invariably used
in giving the coup cLe grace to expiring game.
I now paid Taroman, giving him a cotton blanket, and
telling him that if the cattle were all right on my return,
I would give him another, also plenty of beads. The old
man was highly incensed. Working up his passion, he
fumed and stormed, showing more energy for the time than
could be noted in the aggregate of his exertions since I had
enlisted his services.
What ridiculous capers he c u t! With exclamations of
utter disgust he was constantly turning away as though he
intended to leave us to the tender mercies of an inexorable
fate. Then he would return, primed and ready with a new
and a more powerful charge of withering words, which he
poured forth with astonishing volubility.
Although the attack slightly disturbed my arrangements,
my equanimity was not upset. I was resigned,
and bowed even to the aggravating circumstances, having
long before become aware that I was utterly unable to frame
a sentence which could in the slightest degree do justice to
the occasion. Even in an inflamed vocabulary there was
nothing sufficiently sulphurous.
Like a gipsy pedlar I kept on, undoing bundles perhaps
to show a piece of cloth or a blanket to a man who said he
would like to see what he was to get at the next town, not
to speak of what he received before he started.
Amidst these scenes of bargaining John’s temper and
countenance had undergone many changes. In the heat of
his rage he would call every one thieves. His face would
change from a livid genuine yellow Hottentot rage to a
stolid and sickly imperturbability which told of the sheer
abandonment of despair. I t was painfully evident that the
comforts of philosophy had not touched the mind of poor
John. When most was expected from him he would sit
down as indifferent to all his surroundings as a monkey with
the colic.
Oh, how .often I wished that the man could understand
me, when after one of his outbursts I would look at him in
despair, and say, “ What is the use of your trying to worry
at the words, when you know that I have tried it and
ignominiously failed ? ”
How helpless are the whites among the blacks when the
latter are in their own lands ! At such times we must
pocket indignation, and thoroughly temper impatience,