“Hear them Greeks an’ that Goa.  You’d think they were gentlemen o’ breeding to hear ’em carryin’ on!  Truth is we’ve no government worth a moment’s consid’ration, an’ everybody knows it, Greeks included!  You men lookin’ for farms?  Take your time!  Once you get a farm, an’ get your house built, an’ stock bought, an’ stuff planted—­once you’ve got your capital invested so to speak, they’ve got you!  Till then you’re free!  Till then they’ll maybe treat you with consideration!  Till then you leave the country when you like an’ kiss yourselves good-by to them an’ Africa.  Till then they’ve got no hold!  The courts can fine you, maybe, but can they make you pay?  It’s none so easy if you’re half awake!  But take me:  Suppose I break a reggylation.  What happens?  They know where to find me—­how much I’ve got—­where it is—­an’ if I don’t pay the fine, they come an’ collar my cattle an’ sticks!  D’you notice any Greeks applyin’ for farms?  Not no crowds of ’em you don’t!  I don’t know one single Greek who has a farm in all East Africa!  Any Goas?  Not a bit of it!  Any Indians?  Not one!  So when a few extry elephants get shot, I get the blame—­down at Lumbwa, where there ain’t no elephants; an’ the Greeks, Goas, Arabs an’ Indians get fat on the swag!  It’s easy to keep track of a white man; the natives all know him, an’ his name, an’ where he lives, an’ report everything he does to the nearest gov’ment officer.  But Greeks an’ Goas an’ Indians an’ Arabs ain’t white, so the natives make no mention of ’em.  They do the lootin’; we settlers get the blame; an’ the whole perishing country’s going to blazes as fast as a lump of ice melting in hell—­but not so fast as I’d like to see it go.  Have some o’ this whisky, won’t you?”

I was scarcely listening to him, but he seemed to get drunk just “so far and no further,” and Fred found him worth attention.  It happened that Fred, Will and I were all thinking of the same thing.  Will put a hand to his neck and stroked the little scar the Arab knife had made in Zanzibar.

“What sort of a country’s this for women?” Fred demanded.

“Which women?” Brown asked in sort of mild amazement.

“White women?”

“Rotten!  Leastwise, there aren’t any.  Yes, there’s three.  Two officials’ wives, an’ Pioneer Jane French.  Heard o’ her?  Walked from South Africa, Jane did—­hoofed it along o’ French, bossed his boys, drove the cattle, shot the meat, ran the whole shootin’ match, an’ runs him, too, when he’s sober an’ she’s drunk.  When they’re both drunk everybody ducks.  She’s scarcely a woman, she’s sort of three-men-rolled-into-one.  Give her a horsewhip ae she’ll manage the unruliest crowd o’ savages ever you or she set eyes on!  Countin’ her as one, an’ the two officials wives, an’ her on this train, there’s four!”

Our eyes met.  I awoke to sudden interest that startled our informant and made him curious in turn.