kept tolerably clean.

"Plenty pom-pom," said M. Jacques, as I looked at them (he returned to
the language that I evidently understood better than his own). "Black
man he cut throats too plenty much."

Opening a padlocked trap-door in the flooring, he disappeared into an
underground cavern. Calling to me, he struck a match, and I looked down
into a kind of dungeon cell, smelling of damp like a vault There I saw a
broken camp-bed, covered with a Kaffir blanket.

"Here live for catch dilly sleep," he cried triumphantly, as though
exhibiting a palace. "Plenty cool night here."

Then, with a bottle in one hand, he came up the ladder, and carefully
locking the trap-door and pulling a table over it, he observed, "Black
man he thief too plenty much."

With one thought only--the longing for liquid of any kind but salt
water-we sat in crazy deck-chairs under the iron verandah, where a few
starved chickens pecked unhappily at the dust. Presently there came the
padding sound of naked feet upon the hard-baked earth, and a dark figure
emerged from an inner kitchen. It was a young negress. Her short, woolly
hair was cut into sections, like a melon, by lines that showed the paler
skin below. The large dark eyes were filmy as a seal's, and the heavy
black lips projected far in front of the flat nostrils, slit sideways
like a bull-dog's. From breast to knee she was covered with a length of
dark blue cotton, wound twice round her body, and fastened with two
safety pins. In her hands, which were pinkish inside and on the palm
like a monkey's, she held a tray, and coming close to us, she stood,
silent and motionless, in front of M. Jacques.

Into three meat-tins that served for cups, he poured out wine from the
bottle he had brought up from his subterranean bedroom. Then he filled
up his own cup from a larger meat-tin of water fresh from the marsh. We
did the same to make the wine go further, and at last we drank. It was
the vilest wine the chemists of Hamburg ever made, though German
education favours chemistry; and the water tasted like the bilge of
Charon's boat. But it was liquid, and when we had drained the tins--I
will not say to the dregs, for Hamburg wine has no dregs--M. Jacques lay
back with a sigh and said, "Drink fine too much."

The girl handed us sticky slabs of Africa's maize bread, and then padded
off with the tray. Coming out again, she crouched down on her heels
against the doorpost, and silently watched us with i