These troubles were the greatest that I could at this time imagine.  I have already stated that I had $1,750 worth of pagazis’ clothes, or 3,500 doti, stored in my tent, and above what my bales contained.  Calculating one hundred and forty pagazis at 25 doti each, I supposed I had enough, yet, though I had been trying to teach the young Hindi that the Musungu was not a fool, nor blind to his pilfering tricks, though the 3,500 doti were all spent; though I had only obtained one hundred and thirty pagazis at 25 doti each, which in the aggregate amounted to 3,200 doti:  Soor Hadji Palloo’s bill was $1,400 cash extra.  His plea was that he had furnished Ulyah clothes for Muhongo 240 doti, equal in value to 960 of my doti, that the money was spent in ferry pice, in presents to chiefs of caravans of tents, guns, red broad cloth, in presents to people on the Mrima (coast) to induce them to hunt up pagazis.  Upon this exhibition of most ruthless cheating I waxed indignant, and declared to him that if he did not run over his bill and correct it, he should go without a pice.

But before the bill could be put into proper shape, my words, threats, and promises falling heedlessly on a stony brain, a man, Kanjee by name, from the store of Tarya Topan, of Zanzibar, had to come over, when the bill was finally reduced to $738.  Without any disrespect to Tarya Topan, I am unable to decide which is the most accomplished rascal, Kanjee, or young Soor Hadji Palloo; in the words of a white man who knows them both, “there is not the splitting of a straw between them.”  Kanjee is deep and sly, Soor Hadji Palloo is bold and incorrigible.  But peace be to them both, may their shaven heads never be covered with the troublous crown I wore at Bagamoyo!

My dear friendly reader, do not think, if I speak out my mind in this or in any other chapter upon matters seemingly trivial and unimportant, that seeming such they should be left unmentioned.  Every tittle related is a fact, and to knew facts is to receive knowledge.

How could I ever recite my experience to you if I did not enter upon these miserable details, which sorely distract the stranger upon his first arrival?  Had I been a Government official, I had but wagged my finger and my quota of pagazis had been furnished me within a week; but as an individual arriving without the graces of official recognition, armed with no Government influence, I had to be patient, bide my time, and chew the cud of irritation quietly, but the bread I ate was not all sour, as this was.

The white men, Farquhar and Shaw, were kept steadily at work upon water-proof tents of hemp canvas, for I perceived, by the premonitory showers of rain that marked the approach of the Masika that an ordinary tent of light cloth would subject myself to damp and my goods to mildew, and while there was time to rectify all errors that had crept into my plans through ignorance or over haste, I thought it was not wise to permit