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the homeward hurrying schoolboy with his satchel and his mackintosh pinafore, in the tripe and trotters cart, in the grisette with gay bandbox, in the argumentative agent de police with his ample cape....

here at the out-of-door tables, ant hawkers, in the priests and enjoy the pageant of the with flapping soutane and pavement. For pageant it is clumsy shoes, in the Breton of necessity. We are, admitted- maids with their starched caps, ly, foreigners. There must al- in ways be something extra charming, something extra delightful in these habits and customs which are not ours by birth. If we were French, could we look at Seek Midday Street with the same eyes? I doubt it. There seems to be an element of make-believe in these baker's girls pushing their wicker bassinettes or carrying the tubular baskets filled with yard long loaves, in these hurrying housewives with their trellis panniers for wine bottles, in the nuns with their strange and varied headgear, in the itiner

There is pageant, and yet there is reality. There is the reality of something which we seem to need more in England, a sense of common humanity, an unconsciousness of class difference. .

I am not sure that, after all, the first step towards Utopia may not be found in Seek Midday Street.

FROM THE BUSH.

BY FUNDI.

I. THE SULTAN.

I FIRST met Sultan Isau in the summer of 192-. We were returning from a prolonged elephant trip when, late one afternoon, we broke from the bush into a trail that showed every sign of recent and heavy usage. I called Selimani and asked him in which direction the village lay. He examined the trail for some little while and then pointed to the west, and giving the word accordingly, the safari took the westerly direction and headed into the setting sun. Events soon proved him to be right, for after about two miles' going we passed some mizinga,1 and several straight logs stripped clear of bark-both of which signs we had come to recognise as meaning "village." village." It is from this inner bark that the natives make their clothes.

We were soon in sight of the village, and I stopped at the river for a bathe before entering. While I was dressing I saw approaching through the overhanging bushes a little cavalcade, which resolved itself into a girl carrying an ungainly sort of load upon her shoulders and followed by half a dozen men. They halted at the river bank and I noticed that the

girl and her burden remained in front, contrary to the usual custom of the women retiring well to the rear. I finished dressing and, fording the river lower down, walked up the opposite bank towards the party who I guessed were awaiting my arrival. As I approached I could see that the girl's burden was alive, and in another moment that it consisted of a very old man!

"Jambo Bwana," said the girl as I came alongside, and from his awkward position the old man lifted a thin arm in greeting.

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Jambo," I returned. "Who are you ?

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"The great Sultan Isau," she announced, and as I stared at her in amazement she hitched the old man forward across her shoulder by way of explanation. I looked at him, and his fine old face told his rank and lineage. He had none of the coarseness of the African native. His skin was brownnot black, his nose high and aquiline, his lips thin, though they sagged sadly over his toothless gums. His whole face was criss-crossed by a network of very fine lines, and the little hair he had was quite

1 Bee-hives.

white. His features were much too cleanly cut for a pure Yao native, and from this fact, together with his colour, I concluded that a good deal of Arab blood ran in his veins.

Despite his position he still maintained an air of great dignity difficult to describe.

Greetings, white man-and welcome!" he croaked, as he shook my hand native fashion and looked into my face. "It is many moons since Isau looked upon the face of a M'zungu," he added, as the girl, obeying his order, turned and led the way up the trail.

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After we had made camp, and while I was sitting down to a cup of tea, Selimani came up to inform me that "this village is a good village," from which I deduced that he had seen a pretty girl somewhere! Selimani's landscape was entirely dominated by the presence, or otherwise, of pretty girls, and I use the word "pretty" with diffidence, for Selimani's idea of prettiness was like the rest of his ideasmostly addled ! What was more to the point, however, he told me that Sultan Isau was a very great man and that in days gone by his name had been very greatly feared.

"It is no shame for the Bwana to go to his house," he added, referring to the fact that it is the custom for a white man to await the visit of the chief at his tent, it

1 European.

being considered infra dig. to reverse the procedure.

That evening I walked across to the Sultan's house. Big wood fires were lit all round his compound, and I found my boys were being regaled with food and beer at the Sultan's expense, with half the village looking on. They rose as I came up, and the headman stepped forward to ask my wishes. I told him that I had come to talk with the Sultan, and he thereupon ordered a woman to take me into the house. I followed her in through a heavily-carved doorway, the doors of which, I noticed, were hung on big wooden hinges-the first of their kind I had ever seen in Africa. Though the hut was a large one, its spaciousness was sadly diminished by the innumerable sub-divisions into which a native loves to separate his house. A wood fire smouldered in the centre of the room, and its acrid smell pervaded the entire atmosphere. I stepped over the fire and followed the woman through a low doorway into pitch darkness, where she left me, for I heard the pad of her naked feet as she went away. I could see nothing, but at the same time I knew I was in a room from the warm rather fœtid smell, and after standing for a moment undecided what to do, I called out— "Hódi ? "2

'Káribu! "3 came a faint

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"Aie, it is so, white man, but I remember when thousands of fighting men ate the food of the lion Isau, and relished his salt."

invitation, the voice sounding my boys eat of the hospitality choked by the darkness, and of the Sultan Isau." striking a match I stepped carefully in its direction. There is a species of darkness so intense that the light from a match is utterly incapable of piercing it, and the darkness of this room was of that variety.

Stumbling over the roughness of the floor, I at last banged against an obstruction, and, feeling down, my hands came in contact with the roughness of native bark blankets, and I knew I was against a bed.

"Of those days I would hear, O Sultan, for the white man ever loves a fighter, and a fighting story is as music to his ears."

For a while there was silence in the room. Faintly from outside came the talk of my tanga-tanga boys as they dispatched the evening meal and bandied words with the vil

"Jambo, Sultan," I ven- lagers. I wished I had a lamp tured.

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"Jambo Bwana came the cracked voice of the old man, using my native name, and feeling about, I lowered myself carefully on to the rickety string bed.

"This is a great honour," went on the old man as I settled myself down. "Why does the white man come to see the worn-out lion?"

"A lion is a lion always, O Sultan," I answered sententiously, "and age but brings him a greater magnificence."

"Aie-perhaps so!" he anhe answered, and I could tell from the sound of his voice that he was pleased. "But it is poor work for a lion, even an old one, to lie here in the darkness all day."

"But the word of the Sultan still goes out to his people," I said, soothingly.

"Even now

so that I could see what the old man was doing, when suddenly

"Know you of the Sultan Malingalili?" he asked in a musing voice.

"I have heard of him," I answered.

Good! A great man was Sultan Malingalili. He was truly a lion, afraid of nothing. No! not even of the Shield men'-and I was a brother to Malingalili. His people and mine fought together," and there was a note of pride in his voice.

"I did not always live here," he went on. "Long before this, when I was a young man and my father the Sultan, our villages were close to Malingalili, and our people friendly. remember one day as I was sitting in front of my father's house-and in those days, white

1 Angoni tribe, so called from the big shields they carried, Zulu fashion.

I

man, armed men stood at the doorways, not women,-a man came running in from the gardens, and throwing himself on his knees at the door"'Sultan, O Sultan!' he shouted, the Waarabu 1 be upon us!'

"My blood leapt as I heard this, and springing to my feet, I rushed past the guards into the house, shouting out the news. The women ran crying from before me; but my father and his men seized their bows and arrows and rushed out through the doors. The big war-drum was beaten, and the fighting men assembled in the square as fast as they could run. In a few minutes the people from the outlying villages came crowding into our stockade, as was their custom whenever we were attacked, and as the last stragglers hurried up to the gate, the dreaded sound of guns came echoing across the bush.

"Quickly we mustered our men and closed the stockade, awaiting the Waarabu from behind our defences. Before long we saw them coming on up the wide trail. Every man wore plenty of clothes, and nearly every man carried a gun. They spread themselves into a long line, and started shooting at the barricade. We replied with our arrows, but we could not shoot as far as they could, and soon one and then another of our men fell

1 Arabs.

away from their posts with a hole in their bodies, from which the red blood flowed. My father saw that this was no good, and ordered the men to stand back amongst the houses for greater protection. We did this, and the Waarabu thought we had run away, and with loud laughter ran quickly to the barricade.

"A shower of our arrows fell among them, and many were killed, but always more seemed to come forward. We went on shooting until we had nearly finished our arrows, and then we fell back again across the square. My father shouted to the women to run away into the bush, which they did, being greatly afraid, but they had not gone many moments before shrieks and shots came to our ears, and we knew that something else had happened out there where they had gone. Hearing this, the young married men became very angry, and, deserting their posts, ran after the women. My father shouted to me to go with them and help in the rescue. We ran as fast as we could, but when we got there it was too late.

The Waarabu had captured our women, and were killing the old ones, while the young ones already had their necks in the goree. Among the old ones was my mother, and I saw her die as becomes a Sultan's chief wife. White man, I swore to kill the man

2 The forked stick used by the Arabs to fasten slaves together-by their necks.

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