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CHAPTER VII

UNGUJA—AND UP-COUNTRY

Every two or three years in those days you met either Mr. or Mrs. Ewart Stott at Unguja, usually at the ramshackle residence and place of business of Mr. Callaway, the Commercial Agent of the East African Mission. And when Mrs. Ewart Stott was there she took command, so that you instinctively greeted her as hostess. Mr. Callaway was quite willing it should be so, because she accomplished wonders in setting his untidy house in order; she gingered up his servants and routed the cockroaches, chased away some of the smells, and generally cured a feverish attack by quinine, chicken broth, and motherly care.

The Ewart Stotts as missionaries were independent because Mrs. Ewart Stott had begun as Church of England and Mr. E. S. as a Presbyterian, yet they could not quite agree with the discipline or the ideals of the different churches or sects and preferred evangelizing East Africa on a plan of their own. They had private means—at any rate at first; until they had run through them in founding mission stations, whereafter they were supported by anonymous benefactors. And as their tenets and modus operandi were nearest to those of the Methodists' East African Mission, they worked alongside them and made use of their Agent and depôt at Unguja.

Both were of Ulster parentage, with some admixture of a more genial stock; yet both were born in Australia. She as a Miss Ewart and he originally a Mr. Stott. At the same moment, so to speak, they had "found Christ," and it really seemed a logical sequel that Providence should bring them together at some Australian religious merry-making. They instantly fell in love, quickly married and fused their surnames. She was twenty, he twenty-two. She was distinctly personable and he quite good-looking. They had probably been born, both of them, perfectly good, unconsciously sinless, so that the getting of religion did not make them better or more likeable but only afflicted them with a mania for quoting hymns, psalms, and Bible texts à tout propos and seeing the Lord's hand, His Divine interference in every incident, every accident, any change for better or worse which affected themselves. They were constantly in receipt of Divine intimations generally after communing in prayer. And these they obeyed as promptly as possible.

For instance, only six months after they were married, and when their eldest child was already on its way, they were inspired to evangelize East Africa. Forthwith they sold up their home in South Australia, took ship with an immense outfit to Aden, and thence transferred themselves to Unguja and the Zangian mainland.

They wished to preach nothing but "Christ crucified" and the new life which black men and white men should lead after "accepting of" this sacrifice, this atonement for the presumed sinfulness of poor, martyred humanity. But despite this broad, if illogical, basis of their propaganda, they were afflicted with a bitter dislike of Science, which they concentrated on the theory of Evolution, or on any Biblical criticism which would weaken their faith in a very manlike God who apparently turned his back on his own universe to concern himself solely and very fussily, very ineffectively with one of its grains of dust, a tiny planet circling round a fifth-rate star among a billion other stars. For the rest, they had infinite courage, infinite love and charity, immense powers of work, but no sense of humour.

Consul after Consul warned them as to the risks they ran in plunging—Father, Mother and Babies—into unexplored Africa of the worst reputation. They smilingly ignored warnings and protests, … wild beasts, wild peoples, wild climates, wild scenery—all seemed against them. Mr. Stott was once tossed by a rhinoceros into a river; but the water broke his fall and he emerged before the crocodiles woke up, and staggered back to camp, only slightly wounded. Shortly afterwards, hundreds of Masai warriors charged their camp, and their coast porters fled into the bush. The naked, fat-and-ochre-anointed warriors with their six-foot spears found Mrs. Stott sipping tea at her camp-table and sewing clothes for her baby, while Mr. Stott with bound-up wounds was lying on a camp-bed. Mrs. Stott, convinced that the Almighty was somewhere in the offing, smiled on the warriors and shared her plum cake among the foremost. They returned the smile, enlarging it into a roar of laughter. After executing a war dance they withdrew, and later on sent her a large gourd of fresh milk.

After some floundering, owing to the uncertain indications of the Divine will and purpose, they had settled on the old explorer and missionary route to the Victoria Nyanza, due west of Unguja in what was called the Ugogo country, partly because the Wa-gogo were thought to be quite recalcitrant to Christianity.

Lucy Josling, who had had much of this summary poured into her half-attentive hearing by her betrothed, as they walked through the narrow lanes between the tall stone houses of Unguja—she much more interested by the handsomely dressed Arabs, the veiled women, the wandering bulls and their owners, salaaming Indians—entered at last the Arab house rented by Mr. Callaway for his Agency.

Passing through a dark entry and corridor they emerged into a courtyard with an immense fig-tree in the middle. Round this square space there was a broad and shady verandah. Mrs. Stott rose from her sewing-machine and greeted Lucy with that simple cordiality which made her so many friends among the converted and the unconvertible.

"You must feel quite dazed being on shore after so many weeks at sea. You'd like to go to your room, I know, and perhaps be quiet there till our midday meal. We've done the best we could for you—at short notice—for your young man and I have only been at Unguja since Saturday. We travelled down together, he to get married, of course, and I to see to a large consignment of goods that has arrived for us here. I also expected a recruit for our Mission, but he does not seem to have caught this steamer."

Mrs. Stott then led the way to Lucy's room, and John departed to the Customs House to clear her baggage and get it stored: a matter which would occupy him for the rest of the daylight.

Although the upstairs bedroom that Lucy was to occupy smelt, like all the rest of the premises, of copra, aniseed, cockroaches, dried fish, shark's liver oil, curry-powder, rats' and bats' manure, in one badly mingled essence, with this and that ingredient sometimes prevailing, it seemed clean and airy, and there was some grace and refinement in the clean bed linen, white mosquito curtain, and bunch of Frangipani flowers in a Persian pottery vase. Instinctively she turned to Mrs. Stott with tears in her eyes. "This is your doing, I am sure! Somehow you remind me of mother."

"Well," said Mrs. Stott, "that's just what I should like to do; though I suppose I'm not older than an elder sister; only this African life ages one very quickly."

The heat during the rest of the day seemed to Lucy in this low-ceilinged room, in a low-lying part of the town, almost unbearable. She spent much of the afternoon lying on her bed in déshabille, a constant prey to home-sickness. She tried at one time playing with the little Stott child on the landing, but it was much more interested in the large red-black cockroaches which it caught with surprising swiftness of aim and without any of Lucy's shuddering horror. It would hold these insects with their little flat heads, twirling antennae, scratchy legs and fat yellow bellies quite firmly (yet not unkindly) in its plump fingers for grave consideration; then let them go to run over the planks. Mrs. Stott was away to the Customs House; a pale, perspiring, half-clothed Indian clerk was passing in and out of the house on Mr. Callaway's business, too fever-stricken and listless to care one grain of damaged rice about this young woman fresh from England. The fleas on the ground-floor verandah and business premises were too numerous for any novice to endure. Lucy's only resource was to return to her room, rid herself of these persecutors by undressing and await with patience the after-sunset cooler air. A visit from Mrs. Stott at half-past six notified that the evening meal would be served at seven and that John Baines had seen to all Lucy's luggage. Such as she wanted for the next few days was ready to be brought up for her use; the rest would be put in the go-down to await the departure in the "dau"[#] that would convey them to the mainland. Lucy therefore had to rise and dress, come down and force herself to show some affection for her betrothed and some interest in her mass of luggage—all the while preoccupied by the mosquitoes which bit her ankles, the fleas that attacked her with renewed voracity, the cockroaches which scurried about her feet, and the smells which made her sick. She enjoyed the chicken broth flavoured with hot red chillies and the coco-nut milk served round for drinks at the evening meal; and picked a bit of fish, fresh and flaky. Also she appreciated the dessert of pineapples, mangoes and oranges. Instead of coffee afterwards they had tea, with goat's milk. This was thirst-quenching and helped to diminish the racking headache which had been steadily reaching a climax during the evening.

[#] Decked Arab sailing-ship.

At nine o'clock all vestiges of a meal were cleared away and John, Mr. Callaway and even Mrs. Stott assumed an air of portentousness as about twenty-four able-bodied Negroes filed in and the two or three Negro servants of the Stotts set out a number of hymn-books and a large Bible. John then read prayers and a portion of scripture in Swahili while the Christianized negroes dutifully knelt, sat, and stood to sing hymns in unison with their white employers. The hymns being likewise in the Swahili language, the whole ceremony—occupying about half an hour—was without meaning to Lucy, who was driven nearly frantic by the fleas and mosquitoes. At last, bed-time came; John unwillingly took his leave, promising to call round for Lucy at eight in the morning to take her on a round of visits. Lucy, in very low spirits, retired to her bedroom, but Mrs. Stott followed. Without being asked for any explanation she was allowed to cry for five minutes on Mrs. Stott's neck. Then the latter undressed her, rubbed the bites with some cooling lotion, administered five grains of quinine and put her to bed.

What with the squeaking and chattering of the fruit-bats eating the figs outside, the rats running over the floor of her room, and a tornado of thunder, lightning and drumming rain, the night was not a pleasant one. But when Mrs. Stott woke her with a cup of tea and she ventured outside her mosquito-curtain, things took a brighter aspect. She had from her window a glimpse of the sparkling blue bay in the level rays of the just-risen sun, a fringe of coco-nut palms, their fronds still wet with the rain, a tangle of brown shipping—Arab "daus" and Indian "baghalas"—hauled up for repairs; and the atmosphere was cleared and fresh after the tornado. She was almost cheerful by the time she had dressed and come downstairs. Mrs. Stott had advised her to put on high boots to save her ankles from mosquito bites, and to dust herself freely with Insecticide powder to discourage the fleas. As a special indulgence to a tired visitor she was let off morning prayers and only heard the nasal singing whilst completing her toilet in her room after a pleasant little breakfast in bed, over a book. John duly came with a carriage borrowed from the Sultan's stables, and Lucy—almost gay once more—set out with him to be introduced to Archdeacon Gravening—who in the absence of the Bishop (on tour) was to perform the religious marriage ceremony at the Cathedral.

Gravening was an austere-looking man but of kindly disposition. He made her feel at home, and as he knew the Reading district in old Oxford days of walking tours and reading-parties he could talk about that home-country which, as it receded in time from her contemplation, seemed a Paradise she had recklessly quitted.

The ladies of the Anglican Mission—a celibate Mission when at work in Africa, its members being supposed to leave its ranks when they married—received Lucy with some detachment of manner. They were good creatures, indeed, but they came from a social stratum one or even two degrees higher than hers, and inwardly they were less tolerant of Nonconformists, than were their men fellow-workers. Lucy, they had ascertained, was a "Church person," but she was about to marry into a Methodist Mission. However, her rather plaintive prettiness and the home-sick melancholy in her eyes enlisted their womanly sympathy. Two of them offered themselves in a bride's maid capacity, and the Sisterhood in general proposed that the honeymoon should be spent at their little country retreat of Mbweni. But John explained as to this, that he could not prolong his absence from the up-country station more than was just necessary for the prescribed residence at Unguja; and that their honeymoon must be spent on the return journey. He dilated, for Lucy's encouragement, on the picnic charms of the "Safari."[#]

[#] The accepted meaning of "Safari" is a journey with tents, and porters to carry the baggage.

* * * * *

During the ten days of her pre-nuptial stay at Unguja Lucy had no talk with Brentham. Presumably he was too busy over political and Consular matters. Once indeed when walking with John through the winding streets of the African-Oriental city she had seen him out riding with Bazzard, the Vice-Consul. John had accomplished all the preliminary formalities, and on her marriage morning—early on account of the heat—Lucy went in one of the Sultan's carriages, attended by Mrs. Stott and the two ladies of the Anglican Mission, to the British Agency. John met them at the entrance; they walked slowly up the stone steps to the office for the transaction of Consular business. Bazzard, with Mrs. Bazzard—the latter assuming the airs of a Vice-reine—met them there and ranged the wedding party in order. Brentham then entered, bowed to them both, but avoided meeting Lucy's eyes. He put to them in a level business-like voice the necessary interrogatory and declared them duly married. The party then passed into one of the Agency's drawing-rooms. Champagne—and lemonade for the teetotalers—was served, together with mixed biscuits and sweetmeats. The Acting Consul-General proposed the health of the Bride, and for the first time looked Lucy full in the face. He next withdrew on to a verandah and talked for some time with the bridegroom about his mission station and the journey thither and spoke earnestly on the subject of Lucy and her welfare, instancing his interest in her home-country as well as his position as "their" Consul to explain his anxiety as to her future. Then returning to the general company he handed Lucy a small case which he said contained a trifling wedding present and wished her all possible happiness, promising "some day or other" to visit her in her new home. He grasped her hand with a brief pressure and—pleading urgent business as an excuse for not following the party to the Cathedral—withdrew to his office. Mrs. Bazzard introduced her husband and bestowed a condescending patronage on Lucy and on the Mission ladies, who, never having met her before, found themselves almost audibly wondering who on earth she was, and where—with that slightly cockney accent—she had come from.

The religious ceremony at the Cathedral was one of considerable ecclesiastical pomp, secretly enjoyed by John Baines; who, however, thought on what mother would say when he told her he had nearly been married by a Bishop and quite so by an Archdeacon, and still more how she would have appreciated the black acolytes in their scarlet cassocks and white dalmatics, the incense-smell in the building, and the vestments of the clergy.

After they left the Cathedral they repaired to the Arab house of stone and rich Persian and Kurdish carpets in which Archdeacon Gravening lived. Here an unpretentious luncheon was given as a wedding breakfast. Gravening hardly ever spoke about religion, which was why Mrs. Stott despaired of his being saved, though she admitted he was compact of quiet kindness. His one enthusiasm was language study. He was deeply versed in the Bantu languages and translated for the Anglican Mission most of the works they required to use in their schools and churches. He had corresponded with John Baines, and the latter had written down for him samples of vocabularies of the different languages heard in his district.

Some insight into the conflict going on in the dazed mind of Lucy—who throughout these ceremonies looked as though she were a wound-up automaton—inspired Mrs. Stott to suggest to John that as they were due to start in the Arab dau early the next morning in order to reach the mainland port of Lingani before nightfall, Lucy should spend the rest of her marriage-day and night with Mrs. Stott, and their honeymoon should not commence till they reached the Mission house at Lingani. This they would have to themselves for three or four days whilst their caravan for up-country was being got ready. Accordingly poor John, when the wedding luncheon was over and the guests had dispersed, surrendered Lucy to Mrs. Stott and spent the rest of the day rather disconsolately making his preparations for departure. Lucy got through much of that hot afternoon in her nightdress—for coolness—inside the mosquito curtains of her bed, weeping at times hysterically; tortured with homesickness one minute and at another seized with a mad longing to call on Brentham at the Agency and see him once more. Sometimes she felt an actual dislike for John; at others a great pity for him, yet a shuddering at the idea of his embraces, of any physical contact with him.

Mrs. Stott prayed for her, apart in her own bedroom but the Divine direction of her thoughts seemed to take the line that the least said was the soonest mended, and that the young couple had better be left to their own society at Lingani to come to an understanding.

The next morning, however, it was a composed though rather silent Lucy who was punctually ready to go away with John when he came to fetch her to embark in the dau. Mrs. Stott had risen early to make coffee for them and give them a send-off of embraces, and provisions for a nice cold lunch on board. "My dear," she said to Lucy, "you'll have a delightful water picnic. There's going to be just wind enough to blow you across. I wish I were coming with you, but I shan't get away for another fortnight. However, we shall meet in the interior, I dare say, before very long."

John had made for his bride a little nest among cushions and clean brightly-coloured grass mats in the deck cabin of the dau (a mere palm-thatch shelter), and for an hour or so a smile came back to Lucy's sad face as she appreciated the pleasant freshness of the morning breeze, the picturesqueness of the boat and the vivid blue or emerald green of the water according as it was deep or shallow. She had quite an appetite for the early lunch which Mrs. Stott had thoughtfully provided. But presently an anxious look came into her face and a restlessness of manner. "John! Can I be coming out in a rash? I feel an intolerable itching round my neck and wrists—Oh! Horror! What is this?" And she pointed to some flat, dark brown disks which were scurrying out of sight up her arms and into the folds of her linen bodice. …

"Bugs!" said John, shocked and apologetic, "they are sometimes found in these Arab vessels. … I am so sorry. … Yet there was no other way of crossing to Lingani. … "

Lucy went white with disgust. From the palm mid-ribs which arched over the cabin roof of thatch there came dropping hundreds of bugs on to the unhappy young woman, ignoring or avoiding him who would have willingly offered himself as sacrifice and substitute. Lucy in her dismay, knowing she could not undress before the boatmen and porters and yet not knowing how she could endure hours of this maddening irritation from half-venomous bites, broke out into weeping. "What was to be done?" questioned the poor distraught bridegroom. The gentle breeze had died away … an intense heat prevailed; the dau scarcely moved across a glassy sea … the Nakhodha or bwahih captain of the dau was standing up over the rudder and signalling with his sinewy hand, crying out in a melodious cadence: "Njôô! Kusi-Kusi, Njôô, Kusi-Kusi!"[#] afraid his vessel might be becalmed and prevented from reaching port in daylight. The boat-men and porters were looking at one another with round eyes as they heard the Bibi[#] crying convulsively in the deck cabin. John in his desperation had a bright idea. He knew that the ordinary, vaunted insecticides had no terror for, no deterrent effect on, either bugs or their unrelated mimics, the poisonous ticks of Central Africa; but that both alike fled before the smell of petroleum. There were tins of that mineral oil on board provision for his lamps up-country. Opening one of these cautiously, for petroleum was very precious, he filled an enamelled iron cup and then stoppered the tin. From his medicine chest he obtained cotton-wool. Then with wads of this, and with his handkerchief, he dabbed the swollen wrists and the weals on Lucy's neck and advised her to thrust the saturated wads and linen inside her clothing.

[#] "Come south wind, come!"

[#] Lady.

The strong odour of the oil in a few minutes caused the blood-sucking insects to withdraw and return to their lairs in the thatch and boards. The south wind came at last in puffs, which lessened the heat, but there set in a swell which caused the dau to roll. This movement disturbed the bilge water below the decks, and from this was disengaged a sulphuretted-hydrogen stench almost bad enough to drive the bugs from Lucy's mind. But the wind grew steadier and at last blew the rotten dau to the landing-place at the mouth of a river where they were to disembark.

Lingani was a smaller edition of Unguja Town: flat-roofed Arab houses of white-washed coral rock, thatched wattle-and-daub huts, groves of coco-nut palms, a few Casuarina trees and Frangipani shrubs, pariah dogs, wandering zebu cattle, and dwarf goats. The Mission Rest-house was a substantial stone building in the Arab style of East Africa. It was maintained jointly by four missionary societies for use by their members in transit. There was a Swahili couple in charge of it, husband and wife. The bed linen, table-cloths, napkins and cutlery were kept in cupboards fastened with cunning padlocks, which only opened when you set the letters of the lock to correspond with the word "open." This to thwart inquisitive natives, with a smattering of education, was written up for reminder in Greek letters. With this ruse John was fully acquainted, so that he lost no time in opening the cupboards and releasing the wherewithal for making up two beds and laying the table for an evening meal. The black housekeepers, proffering greetings and assurance of welcome while they worked, busied themselves in heating water for baths, in making the beds, laying the table, and killing chickens for soup and roast. John's activities were multifold. He had to see the dau unloaded and its precious cargo safely stowed away in the store below the Rest-house.

Lucy at first sat limply in the divan or main reception-room, sore all over, eyes blistered by the glare of sun on water, and with a headache which for crippling agony exceeded anything she had known. But she conquered her sullenness and made feeble attempts to help. John, however, seeing that bath and bath water were ready and that sheets, pillows and blankets had been placed on her Arab bedstead (a wooden frame with a lattice-work across it of ox-hide strips), advised her to undress, soothe her bites with spongings and ointment, and rest between the sheets. Her back ached unbearably; her head seemed half-severed at the neck, and she was seized with violent shiverings. The mosquitoes had given her a sharp attack of malarial fever.

Once in bed, she felt less acutely ill, but of all the nice meal that John and the Swahili man-cook had prepared she could only swallow a cup of tea. Her temperature was found to be up to 102°, so the first and the six succeeding nights of the honeymoon were spent in dire illness and dreary convalescence. But at the end of that time she seemed well enough to start on their up-country journey. John had obtained two Masai donkeys and had bought at Unguja a second-hand side-saddle. Lucy cheered up at the prospect of donkey-riding and above all at leaving this terribly hot coast town for the cooler nights of the interior. Though still deeply depressed and disheartened, she was sufficiently reasonable and well-disposed to be deeply touched by her husband's care of her, his forethought for her comfort and distress at the inconveniences of semi-savage Africa. Some measure of health came back to her, and even cheerfulness, during the first easy days of camp life, before they left the semi-civilized coast-belt, with its shady mango-trees for the midday halt, its unfailing water supply for the thirsty porters and the white man's meals; its comparative safety at night from wild beasts and wild natives.

But between the mountain ranges of the interior—whither they were bound—and this settled country of cultivation and villages more or less governed by the Sultan of Unguja, there lay a desert tract almost devoid of water and ravaged in recent times by a clan of the raiding Masai known to the Bantu natives as "Wahumba." They had recently carried out a ruthless foray across the plains. The native wells had fallen in or their location had been forgotten since the destruction of the villages. Lucy then knew for the first time what it was to suffer from thirst, and to have no water for washing in the morning or evening; and when a little water was obtained from nearly dried up rock-pools or the bed of a run-dry stream, to be hardly able to endure the sight of it, much less taste it when it looked like strong tea, or coffee-and-milk, when it smelt of stable manure or was alive with grubs or wriggling worms. It could only be drunk in the form of tea after it had been strained, boiled, and skimmed.

John had prepared for some such contingency in crossing this desert strip by bringing several dozen coco-nuts and a case of his father's cider—at the mention of which Lucy's mouth watered. But his porters in their own mad thirst had disposed of the coco-nuts and their milk, and the carrier who bore the case of champagne cider on his head had, of course, slipped on a slimy boulder, crossing a dry stream down had come his precious load, and at least half the bottles had cracked and poured forth their sparkling contents over the sand or into the porter's protruded mouth. Still, the other six bottles were retrieved by an indignant John who, in his rage, doffed the gentle long-suffering missionary—which, strange to say, he had become in these few months—witness his unselfish and patient care of his rather peevish wife—and kicked the careless, sticky, half-drunk porter with all the vehemence of an unregenerate Englishman. The porter took his chastisement philosophically. He had tasted nectar. John and Lucy drank the remainder of the cider during the second half of that day, without care for the morrow's drought, for fear lest they be robbed of it by some other accident. …

At last they reached a running stream at the base of the foothills which marked the beginning of a slow ascent of three thousand feet. The verdure, and the shade this created, seemed by contrast a Paradise. They pitched their camp under fine umbrageous trees, near the site of a ruined village which a few months previously had been a populous centre. Around the mounds of clay and sticks and burnt thatch were luxuriant banana plantations with occasional bunches of ripening bananas—though the monkeys of the adjacent thicket had not left many fit for eating. When Lucy had quenched her thirst exuberantly from the rivulet, drinking from cups of folded banana fronds made for her by the repentant porter of the broken cider bottles, her sense of relief and contentment at their surroundings was a little marred by the consciousness of an unpleasant odour which came to them fitfully in puffs of the afternoon breeze. She started out to explore on her own account—she wore high boots and had a tucked-in, constricted skirt. Presently she came to an extensive clearing where banana trunks, brown and rotten, had been felled and lay prone in all directions, half covered with the clay tunnels and galleries of white ants. Amongst these crumbling cylinders lay twenty or thirty skeletons, some of them still retaining strips of leathery flesh and patches of Negro wool on the whitened skulls. The ground at the rustle of her approach began to swarm with a myriad of black, biting ants, disturbed in their daily meal off this immense supply of carrion. Lucy paid little heed to them for the moment as she stood horror-struck at the sight of hissing snakes, gliding into the rank weeds, probably more concerned over the swarming of the ants than at the approach of a solitary human being. She also noted a group of large, grey-brown vultures with lean whitish necks, which hopped heavily before her until they obtained enough impetus to rise above the ground and settle on the branches of a baobab-tree. Lucy, horrified by this unsavoury Golgotha and the slithering snakes, was uttering several squeaks of dismay, when as the terrible "siafu" ants began to nip the skin of her limbs and body, her cries changed to shrieks of terror. Half-blindly she floundered over disgusting obstacles back towards the camp.

John, looking very tired and very dirty, came rushing to meet her and upbraid her for imprudence in wandering off alone where there was danger at every turn; but, realizing she was being mercilessly bitten by the "siafu," he hurried her into the tent, let down the flaps of the entrance and assisted her to undress. She had to be reduced to absolute nudity before the ants could be removed. They had fixed their mandibles so firmly in the skin that in pulling them off the head and jaws remained behind, and for weeks afterwards this unhappy young woman went about with a sore and inflamed body.

But this seeming outrage on her modesty greatly eased their intercourse. They had been for several days husband and wife, but there was still a certain stiffness and reserve in their relations. This disappeared after Lucy was obliged in broad daylight to submit her tortured body to his ministrations. In this new camaraderie she was soon laughing over her misadventure; whilst John acted clumsily as lady's maid.

Two days afterwards they were further drawn together by a thrill of terror. The region having been temporarily depopulated by Masai raids, wild beasts—lions, leopards, hyenas—had been emboldened in their attacks. John's camping places were encircled each evening by a hedge of thorns, and the porters kept up—or were supposed to keep up—blazing fires. But one night in the small hours the tired sentries fell asleep, the fire in front of the tent died down, a lion sprang the hedge, crunched the sentry's skull, and tore at their tent doorway with his claws—attracted by the smell of the donkeys tethered behind. His horrible snarls and growls and the outcry of the awakened men roused John and Lucy. In their movements they knocked over camp washstand and table and could not find the matches or the lantern. John was uncertain where to fire even when he had found his loaded rifle. He dared not shoot into the midst of the growls, lest the bullet should kill the plunging donkeys or strike one of his men. They in their desperation—and, to do them justice, in their desire to save the white man and his wife—were tackling the lion with firebrands, yet feared to shoot his huge body—tangled up with tent ropes and tent flaps—lest they should shoot master or mistress. Lucy swooned across the bed with terror when she felt the lion's body pressed against the thin canvas of the tent wall. … The tent, even, seemed in danger of collapsing under the lion's pressure, as he backed on to it to face the men. At last, fear of the fire dislodged him. He stood or rather crouched against a pile of boxes for a few minutes; then realizing that the way to the exit was clear, he bounded towards it over the dead body of the slain porter. But before he quitted the premises he seized adroitly one of Lucy's two milch goats and, breaking its neck, trailed it over his shoulders and plunged down a ravine. The men followed him with a fusillade of shots from their Snider rifles, but probably in the darkness all went wide. The lion remained in the ravine alternately crunching and growling—but such growling!—the English verb is feeble to express the blood-curdling sound.

Day broke at last. John roused himself, detached gently the hysterically-clutching hands of his wife, who alternately implored him not to expose himself to any more danger and not to leave her to die by herself in the wilderness, but to turn back with her that very day and seek for some safer Mission post at the Coast or in Unguja itself. He put his clothes into better order, knelt and prayed for a few minutes: then tidied the tent space a little and overhauled his rifle. Next, rummaging for ammunition and putting it handy in his side pockets, he issued from the tent, carefully fastening the door flaps after him. He questioned the men in broken Swahili as to the lion's whereabouts. "Chini, Bwana, hapa karibu, ndani ya bondee … Below, master, near here, within the ravine," they answered; and the lion, hearing the raised voices, gave a confirmatory growl which reached to the ears of the shaking Lucy in the tent. She arose, her teeth chattering with terror, and looked out through a slit in the tent door. She saw and heard John call for the headman and guessed that he was marshalling eight of his most courageous porters, the "gunmen" of the expedition, to sally out with him and attack the lion. This beast, having nearly finished the goat, had no intention of leaving the neighbourhood of the camp. He intended to have next, one by one, the two donkeys; and after he had eaten them, the humans. The ravine seemed a convenient place in which to repose till he was hungry again. …

The porters read the lion's mind correctly: "He will wait there, master, till we are breaking camp and then attack the donkeys, and perhaps the one with Bibi on his back. We shall never get him in such a favourable position again. See! He is down there below, looking up at us. He can scarcely rush up this side of the ravine. … " John Baines grasped the situation; he quickly placed himself in the middle of the eight braves, who knelt on one knee in between the tree stems on the edge of the steep descent. All at the word "Fire!" sent a converging volley (which deafened Lucy in the tent) at the great head with its wide-open yellow eyes … and as the smoke cleared away the head was a shapeless mass of blood and brains and the lion was utterly dead.

A shout of triumph arose from the elated men, and the whole force of the caravan—thirty-two men without the poor wretch who had been killed in the night—went tumbling down the ravine to disembowel the lion and cut off its skin for "Bwana" who had shown himself such a man of spirit.

John betook himself to Lucy's tent, exultant. He had killed a lion! He almost forgot to kneel down and send up a thanksgiving for the Divine protection accorded to them. Lucy dried her eyes and at last made an effort to dress and swallow a little breakfast. As her nerves were shattered by the "close call" they had had in the night, and as a burial service must be held over the dead porter and the loads be readjusted, John announced there would be no march that day.

But the next morning Lucy could hardly sit her donkey. And by ill-luck the caravan had only just started and was passing through more ruined banana plantations—another charnel house of the last Masai raid—when it was abruptly halted by a shout of "Nyoka!" Owing to the obstacles of the felled banana stems it was difficult to diverge from the narrow track; and, barring the men's way, in the middle of that track an unusually large "spitting" cobra had erected itself on the stiffened tail-third of its length and was balancing its flattened, expanded body to and fro, threatening the advance of the caravan. It should have been a comparatively easy matter to fell it with a well-flung banana stem, but meanwhile the file of porters halted, and John, impatient to find out the cause of the halt, urged on his donkey to flounder through the vegetation along the track and reach the head of the caravan. Lucy's donkey was so devoted to her sister ass that she could never bear to be separated from her; so, unchecked by Lucy's limp clutch on the reins, she hurried forward. But when she saw the swaying cobra she bolted off to the left into the banana tangle, and the abrupt action flung her rider off amongst skulls and bones and rotting vegetation.

The headman, with a tent-pole, hurled adroitly at the aggressive snake, broke its back, the exasperated porters rushed forward and whacked it to pulp and then threw the remains far from the path, took up their loads and marched forward, hastening to leave so ill-omened a place. The cook and the personal attendant hurried to raise the unconscious, slightly stunned Lucy from her horrible surroundings and caught the donkey. The caravan, however, had to be halted afresh. Lucy was far too ill to ride. Yet a further stay could hardly be made in these surroundings. After a conference with the headman it was decided to rig up a "machila" or travelling hammock out of blankets, and a long pole, and to march on a mile or so to a better site for a camping place, and there await the lady's recovery. …

Poor John! It required, indeed, patience and resignation to the fitful ways of Providence to keep up heart against this succession of disasters. The loads were readjusted so as to release four men to carry the invalid; and the caravan moved on silently, in low spirits and without the accustomed song, till they reached a spot which satisfied their requirements of defensibility against lions, access to good water; shade; and no likelihood of biting ants or snakes. Such a place was found in an hour or two, and the overburdened porters gladly heard the decision to remain till the Bibi was well enough to travel.

Lucy when put to bed was alternately hysterical and delirious. She was suffering more from nervous shocks than from bodily injuries, though several of the ant-bites were inclined to fester, and her left cheek, arm, and side were badly bruised from the fall amongst the bones. John, as he sat and watched her on the camp bed, thought what cursed luck had followed him since his marriage. He had twice made this journey between Hangodi and the coast, and although neither traversing of the hundred-and-fifty miles had been precisely an agreeable picnic, there had not occurred any really tragical incidents that he remembered. Going first to Hangodi, nine months ago, the Masai raids had not taken place; and on his coastward journey a month previously his guide must have taken him along a different path. Thus they had avoided these ruined villages with their rotting remains of massacres. He had often heard lions roar and seen snakes gliding from the path, and had crossed with a hop and a jump swarms of the dreaded "siafu." It was common knowledge that some Arab daus were infested with bugs. But none of these terrors had been obvious on his previous journeys, nor had there been such a scarcity of drinking water. It really seemed as though Divine Providence for some mysterious ends was to crowd all the dangers and disagreeables of an African safari into Lucy's wedding tour.

A talk with the headman helped to clear things up and settle plans. They were, at this new camp—by contrast with the others a very pleasant and salubrious place—about sixty miles from Hangodi and about fifty from the Evangelical Missionary Society's station or Mpwapwa. Here there lived a famous medical missionary. If a message were sent to him by fast runners he might reach them in four or five days with advice and medicines.

Two of the swiftest porters of the safari were chosen to run through the tolerably safe Usagara country with a letter, with calico bound round them for food purchase and a bag of rice tied to each man's girdle. John's revolver was lent to the more experienced of the two as some protection against wild beasts or lawless men. They were promised a present if they did the journey in two days.

* * * * *

There was nothing for it then but to keep Lucy well-nourished with broth made from tinned foods and beef-extract. The porter who had let drop the case of cider and had conceived an attachment for his mistress out of pity and remorse, set a snare one day and caught a guinea-fowl. This made an excellent nourishing soup. Another porter found a clutch of guinea-fowl's eggs. There was one remaining milch goat which yielded about a pint of milk daily.

With such resources as these John strove to prepare an invalid diet which could be administered by spoonfuls to a patient with no appetite and poor vitality. He had a small medicine-case of drugs, but knew not what to prescribe for nervous exhaustion. He scarcely left the vicinity of the tent during the day-time, and slept fully-dressed at night in a deck-chair close to Lucy's camp bedstead.

At the end of the fifth day the medical missionary arrived on a riding donkey with John's messengers, and six porters of his own carrying a comfortable travelling hammock. He diagnosed the case and took a cheerful view of it, but advised their setting out next day with him and attempting by forced marches to reach his station—fifty miles away—in two days. At Mpwapwa Lucy would be nursed back to health by his wife, and when she was fit for more African travel she should be sent on to Hangodi.

* * * * *

Six weeks afterwards she reached her husband's station in Ulunga, completely restored to health. The cool dry season had set in; the country she traversed was elevated, much wooded, picturesque hill-and-dale threaded with numerous small streams, and her travelling escort, the medical missionary, was an interesting man with a well-stored mind who could explain much that she wanted to know.

On her arrival at Hangodi she found Ann Jamblin installed as a potent force in several departments of the station economy, the real mistress of the community. She had come up from the coast in the safari of Mrs. Ewart Stott. The marches had been well regulated the camping places well chosen, the wild beasts had not annoyed them, and they had avoided the waterless tract. Ann was prompt to infer that Lucy had made far too much fuss over the petty discomforts of African travel, and Lucy began to take refuge in a proud silence—which one's persecutors call "sulks"—under Ann's gibes and obliquely slighting remarks.