too old, an’ the middle ‘uns too middle-aged—­an’ who ever heard of a native woman workin’ anyhow.  Who tills the mtama patch, then?  It don’t get tilled, or else the women only ‘tend to it at tillin’ time.  Nobody works at anythin’ about the time you come on the scene, for work ain’t moral, pleasin’ nor profitable, an’ there you are!  As for the trail ahead, lions an’ cannibals are the two mildest kind of calamities they guarantee you’ll meet.”

“You don’t have to believe them,” I argued.  “No man in his senses would start without porters of his own—­”

“Who never run away, an’ never, oh never go lame o’ course!” said Brown.

“Porters enough and to spare,” I continued.  “And food for a month or two—­”

“How are you going to get away right under their noses with food for a month or two?” demanded Brown.  “You’ve got to live off the country after a certain distance.  The further you go, the worse for you, for they’ll sell you nothing and give you less.  By and by your porters get tipped off by the natives of some village you spend a night at.  You look for ’em next mornin’ and where are they?  Gone!  There are their loads, an’ no one to carry ’em!  You’ve got to leave your loads an’ return, an’ the police you told so stric’ly to go to hell meet you with broad grins and lead you to the gov’ment office.  There the collector, or, what’s worse, the ’sistant collector, gives you a lecture on infamy an’ the law of doin’ as you’d be done by.  You ask for your loads back, an’ he laughs at you.  An’ that’s all about it, excep’ that next time you happen to want a favor done you by gov’ment you get a lecture instead!  No, you can’t get away, an’ it’s no use tryin’!  If you was Greeks maybe, or Arabs, yes.  Bein’ English, the Indian Penal Code, which is white man’s law in these parts, ’ll get you sure!”

Brown of Lumbwa sighed at recollection of his wrongs, turned over, and went to sleep again.  The train bowled along over high veld, cutting in half magnificent distances and stopping now and then at stations whose excuse for existence was unimaginable.  We stopped at a station at last where the Hindu clerk sold tea and biscuits.  The train disgorged its passengers and there was a scramble in the tiny ticket office like the rush to get through turnstiles at a football game at home, only that the crowd was more polyglot and less good-natured.

Coutlass, his Greek friend and the Goanese being old travelers on that route were out of the train first, first into the room, and first supplied with breakfast.  Fred and I were nearly last.  Brown of Lumbwa refused to leave his berth but lay moaning of his wrongs, and the iniquity of drink not based on whisky.  I missed Will in the scramble, and although it was nearly half an hour before I got served I did not catch sight of him in all that time.

I counted eleven nations taking tea in that tiny room and there were members of yet other tribes strolling the platform, holding themselves aloof with the strange pride of the pariah the wide world over.