WHITE MEN AT PLAY.
The white man is superior to the black and must show it in his manners and deportment.
This is an unwritten law, observed in the early days of any of our African settlements.
For the man who breaks this law the punishment is swift and severe: he is shunned by his caste and colour.
It is said, but it is nevertheless generally true, that as the settlement prospers, so does this excellent law fall into abeyance. Men without manners arrive and are soon in the majority.
But in the beginnng, the white man watches himself very carefully. He knows all eyes are upon him. He must not permit himself to unbend. In the observance of the law, a man is very self-conscious and is apt to seem stiff and unsympathetic.
In the very, very early days of Kazungula the natives of the place watched some white men relax, and the spectacle afforded them as much pleasurable interest as the knowledge that they had been seen caused pain to the white men.
For many a day the natives of Kazungula commanded a ready audience anywhere in the country, for had not they, and they alone, seen white men at play?
It came about in this way.