h what patience we had, listening to the intermittent
tinkling of the little bell. At the end of fully fifteen minutes the
devotee appeared. He proved to be a mild, deprecating little man, very
eager to help, but without resources. He was a Hindu, and lived mainly
on tea and rice. The rice was all out, but he expected more on the night
train. There was no trading store here. He was the only inhabitant.
After a few more answers he disappeared, to return carrying two pieces
of letter paper on which were tea and a little coarse native sugar.
These, with a half-dozen very small potatoes, were all he had to offer.

It did not look very encouraging. We had absolutely nothing in which to
boil water. Of course we could not borrow of our host; caste stood in
the way there. If we were even to touch one of his utensils, that
utensil was for him defiled for ever. Nevertheless, as we had eaten
nothing since four o'clock that morning, and had put a hard day's work
behind us, we made an effort. After a short search we captured a savage
possessed of a surfuria, or native cooking pot. Memba Sasa scrubbed this
with sand. First we made tea in it, and drank turn about, from its wide
edge. This warmed us up somewhat. Then we dumped in our few potatoes and
a single guinea fowl that F. had decapitated earlier in the day. We
ate; and passed the pot over to Memba Sasa.

So far, so good; but we were still very wet, and the uncomfortable
thought would obtrude itself that the safari might not get in that day.
It behoved us at least to dry what we had on. I hunted up Memba Sasa,
whom I found in a native hut. A fire blazed in the middle of the floor.
I stooped low to enter, and squatted on my heels with the natives.
Slowly I steamed off the surface moisture. We had rather a good time
chatting and laughing. After a while I looked out. It had stopped
raining. Therefore I emerged and set some of the men collecting
firewood. Shortly I had a fine little blaze going under the veranda roof
of the station. F. and I hung out our breeches to dry, and spread the
tails of our shirts over the heat. F. was actually the human chimney,
for the smoke was pouring in clouds from the breast and collar of his
shirt. We were fine figures for the public platform of a railway
station!

We had just about dried off and had reassumed our thin and scanty
garments, when the babu emerged. We stared in drop-jawed astonishment.
He had muffled his head and mouth in a most brillia