decorating the least ashamed, most obviously opportunist face I ever
saw, even on a black man.

"Jambo, jambo;"* he announced, striding in and observing our lack of
worldly goods with one sweep of the eye. (We had not stocked up yet
with new things, and probably he did not know our old ones were at the
bottom of the sea.) He was a lion-hearted rascal though, at all events
at the first rush, for poverty on the surface did not trouble him.

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* Jambo, good day.
---------------

"You send for me? You want a good guide?"

The Haroun-al-Raschid look had disappeared. Now he was the
jack-of-all-trades, wondering which end of the jack to push in first.

"When I need a guide I'll get a licensed one," said Fred, sitting down
and turning partly away from him. (It never pays to let those gentry
think they have impressed you.) "What is your business, Johnson?"

"My name Hassan, sah. You send for me? You want a headman. I'm
formerly headman for Tippoo Tib, knowing all roads, and how to manage
wapagazi,* safari,** all things!"

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* Wapagazi, plural of pagazi, porter.
** Safari, journey, and, by inference, outfit for a journey.
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