le dusty redness, leaving them to watch the hot
rails ribbon out behind our grumbling caboose.

There began to be carousing in the second-class compartment next ahead
of us. Our own Brown of Lumbwa produced a stone crock of Irish whisky
from a basket, imbibed copiously, offered us in turn the glistening
neck, looked relieved at our refusal, and grew voluble.

"Hear them Greeks an' that Goa. You'd think they were gentlemen o'
breeding to hear 'em carryin' on! Truth is we've no government worth a
moment's consid'ration, an' everybody knows it, Greeks included! You
men lookin' for farms? Take your time! Once you get a farm, an' get
your house built, an' stock bought, an' stuff planted--once you've got
your capital invested so to speak, they've got you! Till then you're
free! Till then they'll maybe treat you with consideration! Till then
you leave the country when you like an' kiss yourselves good-by to them
an' Africa. Till then they've got no hold! The courts can fine you,
maybe, but can they make you pay? It's none so easy if you're half
awake! But take me: Suppose I break a reggylation. What happens?
They know where to find me--how much I've got--where it is--an' if I
don't pay the fine, they come an' collar my cattle an' sticks! D'you
notice any Greeks applyin' for farms? Not no crowds of 'em you don't!
I don't know one single Greek who has a farm in all East Africa! Any
Goas? Not a bit of it! Any Indians? Not one! So when a few extry
elephants get shot, I get the blame--down at Lumbwa, where there ain't
no elephants; an' the Greeks, Goas, Arabs an' Indians get fat on the
swag! It's easy to keep track of a white man; the natives all know
him, an' his name, an' where he lives, an' report everything he does to
the nearest gov'ment officer. But Greeks an' Goas an' Indians an'
Arabs ain't white, so the natives make no mention of 'em. They do the
lootin'; we settlers get the blame; an' the whole perishing country's
going to blazes as fast as a lump of ice melting in hell--but not so
fast as I'd like to see it go. Have some o' this whisky, won't you?"

I was scarcely listening to him, but he seemed to get drunk just "so
far and no further," and Fred found him worth attention. It happened
that Fred, Will and I were all thinking of the same thing. Will put a
hand to his neck and stroked the little scar the Arab knife had made in
Zanzibar.

"What sort of a country's this for women?" Fred demanded