e it, nor would they believe until they had seen
the skin that I had dared to kill a 'child of the lioness,' it being
more dangerous than killing a lion itself. I do not think that I was
wise in shooting; but the fact was it was done, and I was in the scrape
before I knew where I was, and having got into trouble, of course the
question then was how best to get out of it."

"In some of the places I passed through they had never seen a white man
before. They would gather round me in dozens, and gaze upon me in the
utmost astonishment. One would suggest that I was not beautiful--in
plainer language, that I was amazingly ugly. Fancy a set of hideous
savages regarding a white man, regarding your uncle, as a strange
outlandish creature frightful to behold. You little boys that run after
a black man in the park and laugh at him, think what you may come to
when you grow old! The tables may be turned on you if you take to
travelling, just as they were with me.

"As with other travellers, my boots hardly ever failed to attract
attention.

"'Are those your feet, white man?'

"'No, gentlemen, they are not. They are my sandals.'

"'But do they grow to your feet?'

"'No, gentlemen, they do not, I will show you.'

"So forthwith I would proceed to unlace a boot. A roar of astonishment
followed when they beheld my blue sock, as they generally surmised that
my feet were blue and toeless. Greater astonishment still followed the
withdrawal of the sock, and the revelation of a white five-toed foot. I
frequently found that they considered that only the visible parts of me
were white, namely, my face and hands, and that the rest of me was as
black as they were. An almost endless source of amusement was the
immense amount of clothing, according to their calculation, that I
possessed. That I should have waistcoat and shirt and jersey underneath
a coat, seemed almost incredible, and the more so when I told them that
it was chiefly on account of the sun I wore so much.

"My watch, too, was an unfailing attraction: 'There's a man in it,' 'It
is Lubari; it is witch-craft,' they would cry.' He talks; he says, Teek,
teek, teek,' My nose they would compare to a spear; it struck them as so
sharp and thin compared to the African production, and ofttimes one
bolder than the rest would give my hair and my beard a sharp pull,
imagining them to be wigs worn for ornament. Many of them had a potent
horror for this white ghost, and a snap of the finge