It Was Every Day For Four Weeks That This System Of Roguery Was Carried Out.

Each day conceived a dozen new schemes; every instant of his time he seemed to be devising how to plunder, until I was fairly at my wits' end how to thwart him.

Exposure before a crowd of his fellows brought no blush of shame to his sallow cheeks; he would listen with a mere shrug of the shoulders and that was all, which I might interpret any way it pleased me. A threat to reduce his present had no effect; a bird in the hand was certainly worth two in the bush for him, so ten dollars' worth of goods stolen and in his actual possession was of more intrinsic value than the promise of $20 in a few days, though it was that of a white man.

Readers will of course ask themselves why I did not, after the first discovery of these shameless proceedings, close my business with him, to which I make reply, that I could not do without him unless his equal were forthcoming, that I never felt so thoroughly dependent on any one man as I did upon him; without his or his duplicate's aid, I must have stayed at Bagamoyo at least six months, at the end of which time the Expedition would have become valueless, the rumour of it having been blown abroad to the four winds. It was immediate departure that was essential to my success - departure from Bagamoyo - after which it might be possible for me to control my own future in a great measure.

These troubles were the greatest that I could at this time imagine. I have already stated that I had $1,750 worth of pagazis' clothes, or 3,500 doti, stored in my tent, and above what my bales contained. Calculating one hundred and forty pagazis at 25 doti each, I supposed I had enough, yet, though I had been trying to teach the young Hindi that the Musungu was not a fool, nor blind to his pilfering tricks, though the 3,500 doti were all spent; though I had only obtained one hundred and thirty pagazis at 25 doti each, which in the aggregate amounted to 3,200 doti: Soor Hadji Palloo's bill was $1,400 cash extra. His plea was that he had furnished Ulyah clothes for Muhongo 240 doti, equal in value to 960 of my doti, that the money was spent in ferry pice, in presents to chiefs of caravans of tents, guns, red broad cloth, in presents to people on the Mrima (coast) to induce them to hunt up pagazis. Upon this exhibition of most ruthless cheating I waxed indignant, and declared to him that if he did not run over his bill and correct it, he should go without a pice.

But before the bill could be put into proper shape, my words, threats, and promises falling heedlessly on a stony brain, a man, Kanjee by name, from the store of Tarya Topan, of Zanzibar, had to come over, when the bill was finally reduced to $738. Without any disrespect to Tarya Topan, I am unable to decide which is the most accomplished rascal, Kanjee, or young Soor Hadji Palloo; in the words of a white man who knows them both, "there is not the splitting of a straw between them." Kanjee is deep and sly, Soor Hadji Palloo is bold and incorrigible. But peace be to them both, may their shaven heads never be covered with the troublous crown I wore at Bagamoyo!

My dear friendly reader, do not think, if I speak out my mind in this or in any other chapter upon matters seemingly trivial and unimportant, that seeming such they should be left unmentioned. Every tittle related is a fact, and to knew facts is to receive knowledge.

How could I ever recite my experience to you if I did not enter upon these miserable details, which sorely distract the stranger upon his first arrival? Had I been a Government official, I had but wagged my finger and my quota of pagazis had been furnished me within a week; but as an individual arriving without the graces of official recognition, armed with no Government influence, I had to be patient, bide my time, and chew the cud of irritation quietly, but the bread I ate was not all sour, as this was.

The white men, Farquhar and Shaw, were kept steadily at work upon water-proof tents of hemp canvas, for I perceived, by the premonitory showers of rain that marked the approach of the Masika that an ordinary tent of light cloth would subject myself to damp and my goods to mildew, and while there was time to rectify all errors that had crept into my plans through ignorance or over haste, I thought it was not wise to permit things to rectify themselves. Now that I have returned uninjured in health, though I have suffered the attacks of twenty-three fevers within the short space of thirteen months; I must confess I owe my life, first, to the mercy of God; secondly, to the enthusiasm for my work, which animated me from the beginning to the end; thirdly, to having never ruined my constitution by indulgence in vice and intemperance; fourthly, to the energy of my nature; fifthly, to a native hopefulness which never died; and, sixthly, to having furnished myself with a capacious water and damp proof canvas house. And here, if my experience may be of value, I would suggest that travellers, instead of submitting their better judgment to the caprices of a tent-maker, who will endeavour to pass off a handsomely made fabric of his own, which is unsuited to all climes, to use his own judgment, and get the best and strongest that money will buy. In the end it will prove the cheapest, and perhaps be the means of saving his life.

On one point I failed,, and lest new and young travellers fall into the same error which marred much of my enjoyment, this paragraph is written.

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