“Have you noticed it?” said George to me.
“No, I can’t say I have,” I answered. “What is it like?”
“Great Scott! your nose must be out of order,” said George. “It reminds me of a brickfield. I wonder what it can be?”
“Oh, you fellows must be dreaming,” said I. “I can’t smell anything extraordinary.”
“Can’t you?” said El Hakim, turning in his chair to look at me. “Hullo! what are you smoking?” he added.
“A cigar, of course, and a jolly good one too,” said I, puffing away vigorously as a proof of my enjoyment, which very nearly proved my undoing. “Have one?”
El Hakim rose slowly to his feet, and gazed sorrowfully and reproachfully at me; then giving one or two distinctly audible sniffs, he walked slowly to the edge of the camp and gazed silently over the plains, followed a moment later by George, who made some almost unintelligible remark about “he could stand a good deal, but that——” and, shuddering visibly, he too vanished.
I threw the remains of the cigar into the river, where it probably continued its nefarious career, doubtless doing a lot of harm. George, with a lofty disregard of my feelings, euphoniously christened them “stinkers,” and neither he nor El Hakim could ever be persuaded to smoke one.
I got hardened to them in time, but I only smoked them on special occasions or in default of anything better. I used to smoke them after George and I had turned in for the night. It did not matter whether George was asleep or not; after the first half-dozen puffs he would turn over in his blankets, and, giving vent to a resigned and massive sigh, get up, and, uttering no word the while, he would with great ostentation and an unnecessary amount of noise, open the tent-flaps at each end, thus letting a fierce draught through. He would then go back to bed again, and shiver violently with the cold, and cough pathetic little coughs, till in sheer self-defence I would discontinue smoking and close the tent, but I would have my revenge in the morning while we were dressing, as I would then relight the end left from overnight. George said the smell took away his appetite for breakfast, but that must have been mere vulgar prejudice, as I never noticed anything wrong with his appetite.
We were off again next morning, and in two hours reached the Thika-Thika, the next considerable river on our route. It was the inhabitants of the country adjacent to this river about whom we were warned in Nairobi; but, in consequence of our détour north-eastward to Doenyo Sabuk, we struck the river much lower down than the presumably hostile districts.