make them curl up a trifle over the foot, fastened by thongs;

very ingenious, and very useful. To their task they brought song.
The labour of Africa is done to song; weird minor chanting

starting high in the falsetto to trickle unevenly down to the
lower registers, or where the matter is one of serious effort, an

antiphony of solo and chorus. From all parts of the camp come
these softly modulated chantings, low and sweet, occasionally

breaking into full voice as the inner occasion swells, then
almost immediately falling again to the murmuring undertone of

more concentrated attention.
The red blanket was generally worn knotted from one shoulder or

bound around the waist Malay fashion. When it turned into a cowl,
with a miserable and humpbacked expression, it became the

Official Badge of Illness. No matter what was the matter that was
the proper thing to do-to throw the blanket over the head and to

assume as miserable a demeanour as possible. A sore toe demanded
just as much concentrated woe as a case of pneumonia. Sick call

was cried after the day's work was finished. Then M'ganga or one
of the askaris lifted up his voice.

"N'gonjwa! n'gonjwa!" he shouted; and at the shout the red cowls
gathered in front of the tent. Three things were likely to be the

matter: too much meat, fever, or pus infection from slight
wounds. To these in the rainy season would be added the various

sorts of colds. That meant either Epsom salts, quinine, or a
little excursion with the lancet and permanganate. The African

traveller gets to be heap big medicine man within these narrow
limits.

All the red cowls squatted miserably, oh, very miserably, in a
row. The headman stood over them rather fiercely. We surveyed the

lot contemplatively, hoping to heaven that nothing complicated
was going to turn up. One of the tent boys hovered in the

background as dispensing chemist.
"Well," said F. at last, "what's the matter with you?"

The man indicated pointed to his head and the back of his neck
and groaned. If he had a slight headache he groaned just as much

as though his head were splitting. F. asked a few questions, and
took his temperature. The clinical thermometer is in itself

considered big medicine, and often does much good.
"Too much meat, my friend," remarked F. in English, and to his

boy in Swahili, "bring the cup."
He put in this cup a triple dose of Epsom salts. The African

requires three times a white man's dose. This, pathologically,
was all that was required: but psychologically the job was just

begun. Your African can do wonderful things with his imagination.
If he thinks he is going to die, die he will, and very promptly,

even though he is ailing of the most trivialcomplaint. If he
thinks he is going to get well, he is very apt to do so in face

of extraordinary odds. Therefore the white man desires not only
to start his patient's internaleconomy with Epsom salts, but

also to stir his faith. To this end F. added to that triple dose
of medicine a spoonful of Chutney, one of Worcestershire sauce, a

few grains of quinine, Sparklets water and a crystal or so of
permanganate to turn the mixture a beautiful pink. This

assortment the patient drank with gratitude-and the tears
running down his cheeks.

"He will carry a load to-morrow," F. told the attentive M'ganga.
The next patient had fever. This one got twenty grains of quinine

in water.
"This man carries no load to-morrow," was the direction, "but he

must not drop behind."
Two or three surgical cases followed. Then a big Kavirondo rose

to his feet.
"Nini?" demanded F.

"Homa-fever," whined the man.
F. clapped his hand on the back of the other's neck.

"I think," he remarked contemplatively in English, "that you're a
liar, and want to get out of carrying your load."

The clinical thermometer showed no evidence of temperature.
"I'm pretty near sure you're a liar," observed F. in the

pleasantest conversational tone and still in English, "but you
may be merely a poor diagnostician. Perhaps your poor insides

couldn't get away with that rotten meat I saw you lugging
around. We'll see."

So he mixed a pint of medicine.
"There's Epsom salts for the real part of trouble," observed F.,

still talking to himself, "and here's a few things for the fake."
He then proceeded to concoct a mixture whose recoil was the exact

measure of his imagination. The imagination was only limited by
the necessity of keeping the mixtureharmless. Every hot, biting,

nauseous horror in camp went into that pint measure.
"There," concluded F., "if you drink that and come back again

to-morrow for treatment, I'll believe you ARE sick."
Without undue pride I would like to record that I was the first

to think of putting in a peculiarly" target="_blank" title="ad.特有地；古怪地">peculiarly nauseous gun oil, and thereby
acquired a reputation of making tremendous medicine.

So implicit is this faith in white man's medicine that at one of
the Government posts we were approached by one of the secondary

chiefs of the district. He was a very nifty savage, dressed for
calling, with his hair done in ropes like a French poodle's, his

skin carefully oiled and reddened, his armlets and necklets
polished, and with the ceremonial ball of black feathers on the

end of his long spear. His gait was the peculiar mincing teeter
of savageconventional society. According to custom, he

approached unsmiling, spat carefully in his palm, and shook
hands. Then he squatted and waited.

"What is it?" we asked after it became evident he really wanted
something besides the pleasure of our company.

"N'dowa-medicine," said he.
"Why do you not go the Government dispensary?" we demanded.

"The doctor there is an Indian; I want REAL medicine, white man's
medicine," he explained.

Immensely flattered, of course, we wanted further to know what
ailed him.

"Nothing," said he blandly, "nothing at all; but it seemed an
excellent chance to get good medicine."

After the clinic was all attended to, we retired to our tents and
the screeching-hot bath so grateful in the tropics. When we

emerged, in our mosquito boots and pajamas, the daylight was
gone. Scores of little blazes licked and leaped in the velvet

blackness round about, casting the undergrowth and the lower
branches of the trees into flat planes like the cardboard of a

stage setting. Cheerful, squatted figures sat in silhouette or in
the relief of chance high light. Long switches of meat roasted

before the fires. A hum of talk, bursts of laughter, the crooning
of minor chants mingled with the crackling of thorns. Before our

tents stood the table set for supper. Beyond it lay the pile of
firewood, later to be burned on the altar of our safety against

beasts. The moonlight was casting milky shadows over the river
and under the trees opposite. In those shadows gleamed many

fireflies. Overhead were millions of stars, and a little breeze
that wandered through upper branches.

But in Equatorial Africa the simple bands of velvet black, against
the spangled brightnesses that make up the visual night world,

must give way in interest to the other world of sound. The air
hums with an undertone of insects; the plain and hill and jungle

are populous with voices furtive or bold. In daytime one sees
animals enough, in all conscience, but only at night does he

sense the almost oppressive feeling of the teeming life about
him. The darkness is peopled. Zebra bark, bucks blow or snort or

make the weird noises of their respectivespecies; hyenas howl;
out of an immense simian silence a group of monkeys suddenly

break into chatterings; ostriches utter their deep hollow boom;
small things scurry and squeak; a certain weird bird of the

curlew or plover sort wails like a lonesome soul. Especially by
the river, as here, are the boomings of the weirdest of weird

bullfrogs, and the splashings and swishings of crocodile and