This Means Literally, "How Many
Feet?", Footie Being His Euphemistic Invention Of A Word For The
Tape.
I would tell him how many "footie" and how many "inchie"
the measurement proved to be.
From the depths of his wonderful
memory he would dig up the measurements of another beast of the
same sort I had killed months back, but which he had remembered
accurately from a single hearing.
The shooting of a beast he always detailed to his few cronies in
camp: the other gunbearers, and one or two from his own tribe. He
always used the first person plural, "we" did so and so; and took
an inordinate pride in making out his bwana as being an
altogether superior person to any of the other gunbearer's
bwanas. Over a miss he always looked sad; but with a dignified
sadness as though we had met with undeserved misfortune sent by
malignant gods. If there were any possible alleviating
explanation, Memba Sasa made the most of it, provided our fiasco
was witnessed. If we were alone in our disgrace, he buried the
incident fathoms deep. He took an inordinate pride in our using
the minimum number of cartridges, and would explain to me in a
loud tone of voice that we had cartridges enough in the belt.
When we had not cartridges enough, he would sneak around after
dark to get some more. At times he would even surreptitiously
"lift" a few from B.'s gunbearer!
When in camp, with his "cazi" finished, Memba Sasa did fancy
work! The picture of this powerful half-savage, his fierce brows
bent over a tiny piece of linen, his strong fingers fussing with
little stitches, will always appeal to my sense of the
incongruous. Through a piece of linen he punched holes with a
porcupine quill. Then he "buttonhole" stitched the holes, and
embroidered patterns between them with fine white thread. The
result was an openwork pattern heavily encrusted with beautiful
fine embroidery. It was most astounding stuff, such as you would
expect from a French convent, perhaps, but never from an African
savage. He did a circular piece and a long narrow piece. They
took him three months to finish, and then he sewed them together
to form a skull cap. Billy, entranced with the lacelike delicacy
of the work, promptly captured it; whereupon Memba Sasa
philosophically started another.
By this time he had identified himself with my fortunes. We had
become a firm whose business it was to carry out the affairs of a
single personality-me. Memba Sasa, among other things, undertook
the dignity. When I walked through a crowd, Memba Sasa zealously
kicked everybody out of my royal path. When I started to issue a
command, Memba Sasa finished it and amplified it and put a
snapper on it. When I came into camp, Memba Sasa saw to it
personally that my tent went up promptly and properly, although
that was really not part of his "cazi" at all. And when somewhere
beyond my ken some miserable boy had committed a crime, I never
remained long in ignorance of that fact.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 23 of 189
Words from 11288 to 11808
of 97210