The Men Floundered
Waist-Deep On Uncertain Bottom; The Syces Received Much
Unsympathetic Comment For Their Handling Of The Animals, And We
Had To Get Billy Over By A Melodramatic "Bridge Of Life" With B.,
F., Myself, And Memba Sasa In The Title Roles.
Then we pitched camp in the open on the other side, sent the
horses back from the stream until after dark, in fear of the
deadly tsetse fly, and prepared to enjoy a good exploration of
the neighbourhood.
Whereupon M'ganga rose up to his gaunt and
terrific height of authority, stretched forth his bony arm at
right angles, and uttered between eight and nine thousand
commands in a high dynamic monotone without a single pause for
breath. These, supplemented by about as many more, resulted in
(a) a bridge across the stream, and (b) a banda.
A banda is a delightful African institution. It springs from
nothing in about two hours, but it takes twenty boys with a
vitriolic M'ganga back of them to bring it about. Some of them
carry huge backloads of grass, or papyrus, or cat-tail rushes, as
the case may be; others lug in poles of various lengths from
where their comrades are cutting them by means of their panga. A
panga, parenthetically, is the safari man's substitute for axe,
shovel, pick, knife, sickle, lawn-mower, hammer, gatling gun,
world's library of classics, higher mathematics, grand opera, and
toothpicks. It looks rather like a machete with a very broad end
and a slight curved back. A good man can do extraordinary things
with it. Indeed, at this moment, two boys are with this
apparently clumsy implement delicately peeling some of the small
thorn trees, from the bared trunks of which they are stripping
long bands of tough inner bark.
With these three raw materials-poles, withes, and grass-M'ganga
and his men set to work. They planted their corner and end poles,
they laid their rafters, they completed their framework, binding
all with the tough withes; then deftly they thatched it with the
grass. Almost before we had settled our own affairs, M'ganga was
standing before us smiling. Gone now was his mien of high
indignation and swirling energy.
"Banda naquisha," he informed us.
And we moved in our table and our canvas chairs; hung up our
water bottles; Billy got out her fancy work. Nothing could be
pleasanter nor more appropriate to the climate than this wide low
arbour, open at either end to the breezes, thatched so thickly
that the fierce sun could nowhere strike through.
The men had now settled down to a knowledge of what we were like;
and things were going smoothly. At first the African porter will
try it on to see just how easy you are likely to prove. If he
makes up his mind that you really are easy, then you are in for
infinite petty annoyance, and possibly open mutiny. Therefore,
for a little while, it is necessary to be extremely vigilant, to
insist on minute performance in all circumstances where later you
might condone an omission.
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