A Ceremonial Call
He never burst into a place like a cyclone of happiness, but rather, he sort of oozed in and oozed out, his mild brown eyes brimming with gentleness and his tail, that eloquent insignia of canine gladness, wigwagging messages of good cheer.
In one of the tents of the msungu there was a pet monkey. It had been captured down on the Tana River months before and at first was wild and vicious. As time went by it lost much of its wildness and to those it liked was affectionate and friendly. To all others it presented variable moods, sometimes friendly and sometimes unexpectedly and unreasonably hostile. We feared that Little Wanderobo Dog would have some bad moments with the little Tana River monkey, and their first meeting was awaited with keen interest. We thought the monkey would scratch all the gentleness out of the Little Wanderobo Dog's eyes and that the two animals would become bitter enemies.
But nothing of the sort happened. Little Wanderobo Dog managed the matter with rare tact. He succeeded in slowly overcoming the monkey's prejudices, then in inspiring confidence, and finally in establishing play relations. It was worth a good deal to see the dog and monkey playing together, the latter scampering down from his tent-pole aery, leaping on the dog, and scampering hurriedly over the latter, with a quick retreat to the invulnerable heights of the tent-pole. Little Wanderobo Dog would allow the monkey to roam at will over his features and anatomy, thereby showing tolerance which I thought impossible for any animal to show. After Little Wanderobo Dog had paid his devoirs to his host, which he did each day with great punctiliousness, he would then retire to some sunny spot and enjoy his siesta. He was great on siestas and usually had several each day.
The Entente Cordiale
In time he learned to distinguish between Mohammedans and other dark-complexioned people and held himself aloof from the former, thereby escaping any humiliating races with the heavy boots of the gunbearers and other followers of Allah. He made friends with little Ali, the monkey's valet, a small Swahili boy who looked like a chocolate drop in color, and like a tooth-powder ad in disposition. It was Ali's duty to carry the monkey on our marches.
The little gray monkey, with its venerable looking black face fringed with a sunburst of white hair, would be tied to an old umbrella of the Sairey Gamp pattern, and would sit upon it as the small boy carried it along the trails on his shoulder, like a musket. Sometimes when the sun was strong the umbrella would be raised to shield the monkey's eyes, which could not stand the fierce glare incident to a long march upon sun-baked trails. At such times the monkey, who rejoiced in the brief name of J.T. Jr.—the same being emblazoned on the little silver collar around its neck—at such times the monkey would scamper from shoulder to shoulder of the small boy, with occasional excursions up in the woolly kinks of the heights above. It was a funny picture and one that never failed to amuse those who watched it.
Well, Little Wanderobo Dog, by some prescient instinct hardly to be expected in one brought up in a swamp, decided that little Ali and the monkey were to be his "companions of the march." So, when the tents were struck and Abdi, the head-man, shouted "Funga nizigo yaka!" and the tented city of yesterday became a scattered heap of sixty-pound porters' loads, Little Wanderobo would seek out Ali and prepare to bear him company during the long stretches of the march. And then when the long line of horsemen, native soldiers, porters, tent boys, gunbearers, ox gharries, and all began to wind their sinuous way over veldt or through forest, there was none in the line more picturesque than Ali and J.T. Jr. surrounded by the affable Little Wanderobo Dog.