European Rest House at Tschopowa
The enormous baobab tree on the right was the roosting-place of innumerable bats, which were greedily eaten, after being killed and spitted over a fire, by the native "boys" attached to the caravan.
By degrees things began to settle down. I had charge of the commissariat and cooking arrangements. The natives I found tractable enough, but woefully deficient in their notions of cleanliness. Most of them entertained the idea that the proper way to wash a plate or a dish was to lick it all over thoroughly. In this way, they explained, they not only cleansed it, but at the same time were able to get at least a taste of the white man's "chop."
Water, they contended, was for drinking, not for washing things in. Even to rub over a kitchen utensil with a wisp of dried grass seemed to them a work of supererogation. Eventually I used to boil the water myself in which the dishes were washed up—a necessary precaution against dysentery—and superintend the washing-up operations from start to finish. It was, I found, the only way.
I also had charge of the petty cash book, and used to make small advances to the boys as occasion demanded. They had christened me "The Puss," and applications for money became more frequent and insistent than Schomburgk deemed consistent with good order and discipline. It was, "Please, Puss, give me some pennies," "Me want one shilling, please. Puss," and so on from morning till night.
The climax came on the evening of the second day, when we were about twenty-five miles out from Kamina. Just as I was retiring for the night, a letter was handed to me which purported to come from Messa, our cook, and Alfred, our chief interpreter, but which was really, I found out afterwards, inspired by the first-named individual, although drawn up and signed by them both.
"Dear Puss," it ran, "cook and myself want advance. One pound please. Or more. If not more, less would be good. Farther up in the bush presently we no want one penny. This the last. So please not tell master, because perhaps he make palaver. Good evening, dear Puss. We salute you. Alfred and Messa."
Well, I made a bit of a palaver myself about it, for a sovereign seemed a good round sum for a couple of natives to want all of a hurry, but eventually, yielding to their urgent entreaties, I let them have it. We broke camp next morning at three o'clock, so as to avoid marching in the heat of the day. To my amazement and disgust the cook had disappeared. So, too, had one of our bicycles. The chief interpreter, on being interrogated, disclaimed all knowledge of the whereabouts of the absent man. He had, he asserted, merely written the letter to oblige Messa, and had no idea that he intended deserting, as he apparently had done.
Here was a pretty go and no mistake. The major swore fluently; I cried—profusely. Then we both got angry. He said it was all my fault. "The idea of giving a nigger a whole sovereign advance!" I retorted that he ought to have impressed upon me more carefully what mean, underhand skunks niggers were.
Gloomily we marched to the next camp, and I could hear Schomburgk grumbling to himself at intervals whenever I got near enough to him, which was not often. "No cook! Whatever shall we do? And Messa was a good cook. A better one I never had. And good cooks cannot be picked up in the bush like paw-paws." And so on, and so on.