During the six weeks I encamped at Bagamoyo, waiting for my quota of men, this lad of twenty gave me very much trouble.  He was found out half a dozen times a day in dishonesty, yet was in no way abashed by it.  He would send in his account of the cloths supplied to the pagazis, stating them to be 25 paid to each; on sending a man to inquire I would find the greatest number to have been 20, and the smallest 12.  Soor Hadji Palloo described the cloths to be of first-class quality, Ulyah cloths, worth in the market four times more than the ordinary quality given to the pagazis, yet a personal examination would prove them to be the flimsiest goods sold, such as American sheeting 2 1/2 feet broad, and worth $2.75 per 30 yards a piece at Zanzibar, or the most inferior Kaniki, which is generally sold at $9 per score.  He would personally come to my camp and demand 40 lbs. of Sami-Sami, Merikani, and Bubu beads for posho, or caravan rations; an inspection of their store before departure from their first camp from Bagamoyo would show a deficiency ranging from 5 to 30 lbs.  Moreover, he cheated in cash-money, such as demanding $4 for crossing the Kingani Ferry for every ten pagazis, when the fare was $2 for the same number; and an unconscionable number of pice (copper coins equal in value to 3/4 of a cent) were required for posho.  It was every day for four weeks that this system of roguery was carried out.  Each day conceived a dozen new schemes; every instant of his time he seemed to be devising how to plunder, until I was fairly at my wits’ end how to thwart him.  Exposure before a crowd of his fellows brought no blush of shame to his sallow cheeks; he would listen with a mere shrug of the shoulders and that was all, which I might interpret any way it pleased me.  A threat to reduce his present had no effect; a bird in the hand was certainly worth two in the bush for him, so ten dollars’ worth of goods stolen and in his actual possession was of more intrinsic value than the promise of $20 in a few days, though it was that of a white man.

Readers will of course ask themselves why I did not, after the first discovery of these shameless proceedings, close my business with him, to which I make reply, that I could not do without him unless his equal were forthcoming, that I never felt so thoroughly dependent on any one man as I did upon him; without his or his duplicate’s aid, I must have stayed at Bagamoyo at least six months, at the end of which time the Expedition would have become valueless, the rumour of it having been blown abroad to the four winds.  It was immediate departure that was essential to my success—­departure from Bagamoyo—­after which it might be possible for me to control my own future in a great measure.