of valleys and bogs to cross. By the time we reached the place I had had quite enough; but Charles was extraordinarily keen, and insisted on going on. After climbing some hundreds of feet (it seemed like thousands) I would throw my self down in the heather, while Charles and the guide scanned the sides of the mountain for goats; but it was always the same, the goats were higher up, and on we would climb.

At last, when I was about done, Charles picked up a flock with his glasses. They were out of shot except by making a detour of quite two miles. I refused to move, so Charles and the guide went off, leaving Robert and the ass party with

me.

And when I had sufficiently recovered to think life worth living once more, I forgot all my woes in the beauty of the view stretching out below me for miles and miles. Probably if we had climbed that awful mountain every other day during the remainder of our stay at Rackrent Hall, we might never have hit on such a perfect day again, as generally the greater part of the mountain was either in the clouds or else shrouded in mist.

There is no doubt that if one would see the real beauty of a country one must see it from a height, especially a mountainous country where one's view on the flat is confined.

On one side lay the open Atlantic, a wonderful deep

green, edged with dazzling white breakers near the shore, and a deep lilac towards the horizon. At our feet lay the bay, a still narrow sheet of deepest blue, in places where the rocky sides were sheer, merging almost into black. Across the bay one could see the house and every part of the large demesne, but on such a small scale as to appear unreal. And beyond, as far as the eye could reach, mountains of every size and shape and of every shade of colour; even while one watched the colours changed, and with this change the shapes and contours of the mountains seemed to change also.

We heard three distant shots, and after a long pause saw Charles making frantic signals. Robert set off with the ass party to join him. Eventually on the party making its way down the mountain, I found that Charles had bagged two old goats and a kid; but if the old ones had fine horns their smell was finer. Even the unfortunate asses seemed to be trying to get away from it.

Charles wished the goats taken to the stables in order that he might remove the horns and have them skinned; but for once I asserted my position of an elder brother, and the goats were left at Robert's house.

We found Mary trying to do a deal over some lobsters with a queer-looking old man from one of the outlying islands, whose canoe we had seen at

the slip when we landed, her chief complaint being that sev eral of the lobsters had lost claws, to which the old islander answered plaintively, "But sure, me lady, I couldn't be putting them on agin."

A few days afterwards at breakfast-time Porgeen rushed in with the news that there was a mountainy woman from beyont at the door with a pieceen of paper for Master Charles, and hardly was Patsey able to stop her coming into the dining-room before now. On being told to get the pieceen of paper, Porgeen returned with a dirty half-sheet of notepaper on a silver salver, which he handed to Charles with a broad grin. For some minutes Charles

said nothing, then handed the pieceen to me, and I read out the following: "To bridget Faherty for one goateen and its dada and nanny 4 pounds seven shillins."

There followed a long and painful silence, only broken by fragments of Patsey's violent altercation with the angry mountainy woman which came in through the half-open door in gusts, and the feeling of Porgeen's offensive grin. last Charles, after asking where Robert was, to be told that he had gone to Eastport for the day, slowly and painfully laid four pounds and seven shillings on the salver, and we never heard the word goat again.

INLAND from Malindi, on the shores of the Indian Ocean, where the Sabaki river meets the sea, is a place called Jilori. Jilori was originally a mission station, and had been occupied by those whose endeavour it was to instil the precepts of the Christian religion into the somewhat unreceptive hearts of the Wa-giriama tribe. The Wa-giriama of late had thrown off all pretence of allegiance to either a spiritual or a temporal power (the latter represented by the British Government), and had broken out in open revolt. Thus it was that the followers of the Crescent had temporarily supplanted those of the Cross, and, represented by Yuzbasha 1 Haganas Kuku and fifty askaris of the King's African Rifles, were upholding British prestige in Jilori.

1

unlovely setting. Of gigantic proportions, bow-legged, potbellied, he had a head of abnormal size, which seemed like a block of ebony carved into some approximate semblance of human features.

The firelight flickered on this uncouth figure; it flickered on the drooping leaves of the banana plantation, and on the figures of the sentries, carefully posted by the Yuzbasha; but no gleam of it could reach the impenetrable darkness of the cactus-thorn which enveloped the clearing where the camp was pitched. Haganas Kuku was slowly polishing his teeth with an msuaki 2 stick. The process was purely mechanical, for he was comfortably reflective. Life after all had its compensations, even in this Allah - forsaken country. He had just eaten to repletion, and, in vulgar parlance, had done himself well. For meat was plentiful, and could be had for the asking, or for the taking if the former failed; and when supplemented by the ration allowance of rice and ghi, was all-sufficing. Moreover, more often than not the few Giriama proselytes, mostly women, who had sought refuge in Jilori until law and order had been re-established, brought offerings in the shape of sweet potatoes and mahindi," and 3 Clarified fat.

Indian corn.

And then there was Mutaresa, the Giriama belle who had attached herself to his entourage; she had undoubtedly brought the culinary art to perfection. Even Amina, his second wife, could not prepare a more succulent mixture of rice and ghi. Neither was Mutaresa herself unattractive, and her kilt of goat-skins, the cost of which was negligible, was just as effective in showing off the wearer's charms, and certainly showed more of them, than Amina's more elaborate costume of cloth which entailed a constant expenditure of many rupees in the dukan.1 The Yuzbasha's pleasant train of thought was interrupted at this point by the sudden challenge of a sentry. A few seconds later the sergeant of the guard, supported by the company interpreter, led forward a dingy-looking specimen of the usual nondescript local native.

"The words of the chief MUKOA."

Haganas Kuku was in no mood to deal with the situation that was so suddenly and inopportunely presented to him. Mutaresa's rice and ghi lay heavy on him, and the wheels of his brain worked exceeding slow. The matter was really quite outside his province; the Commandant and his karani3 were the only people who dealt with warragas. He felt a personal sense of injury at having to concern himself with the affair at all, more especially after a full meal. At the same time his subconscious mind was perpetually thinking, in its obscure fashion, what the Commandant would do under the circumstances. A fitful breeze fanned the fire, and the Yuzbasha's eye lighted on the miserable specimen of humanity who had brought the letter. Clothed with a shred of skin looped round his middle, he stood hunched up under the watchful eye of Shawish Faragalla Suliman, the commander of the guard. The Yuzbasha's wellfilled belly revolted at the sight of so much emptiness exemplified by the ill-covered bones of the emissary. Here at any rate was some promising material to work on; some inspiration would assuredly come after a few strokes of the korbash 5 on the dirty shenzi. Then again his inner conscious4 Sergeant. Whip. 6 Outcast.

5

ness reasserted itself. for the time being the representative of a government which prided itself on impartial justice; moreover, his own commandant held decided views on the indiscriminate use of the lash. No, this would not meet the case. The karakol 1 was the only immediate solution; that, he was certain, would meet with the approval of the Commandant, if only as a precautionary measure. He therefore ordered Faragalla Suliman to dismiss, and to confine the prisoner pending further orders.

Dawn

Dawn was just breaking as the little black sinuous column wound itself out of the thorn zareba at Jilori. Haganas Kuku was going on patrol, or, more correctly speaking, was about to pay a domiciliary visit. Mukoa no doubt was a windbag, but when his words took the form of covert insults, not only to the British Government but also to the soldiers of Islam, and last but not least, to the person of Haganas Kuku himself, then action had to be taken, and Haganas Kuku intended to take it.

The force that he now commanded was not a large one. Military necessity had obliged him to leave twenty-five men under the command of Shawish Faragalla Suliman to guard the post at Jilori, thus leaving him twenty-five at his own disposal. He was in no way disturbed, however, by the small numbers of his force, for he was a firm 1 Lock-up.

The path lay through dense cactus, varied by the colloquially and aptly named "waita-bit" thorn-bush, and at intervals a clearing, planted with banana and cocoanut trees, denoted the site of a village. The little column moved in strict military formation, for Haganas Kuku was no stranger to the principles of bush fighting laid down in Field Service Regulations. He neglected no precautions, even to the right and left flankers painfully hacking their way through the bush with their machetes.2 The column had been marching for about two hours when they came upon a deserted village. Here Haganas Kuku called a halt. The conscript guide volunteered the information that they were now within the jurisdiction of Mukoa, and the fact that the village was deserted implied that all was not well in the chief's dominions, since the Wa-giriama are assuredly on mischief bent if they leave their villages and take to the bush. On this occasion, save for some doves which made a melancholy cooing, and a few miserable specimens of the chicken tribe which clucked feebly, there was no sign of life. Haganas therefore kept an exceedingly wary eye on 2 Large knives.