His Domain Was A Fascinating Place, For
It Contained Everything From Pianola Parts To Patent Washstands.
The Next Best Equipped Place Of The Kind I Know Of Is The
Property Room Of A Moving Picture Company.
We went to mail a letter, and found the postmaster to be a
gentle-voiced, polite little Hindu, who greeted us smilingly, and
attempted to conceal a work of art.
We insisted; whereupon he
deprecatingly drew forth a copy of a newspaper cartoon having to
do with Colonel Roosevelt's visit. It was copied with
mathematical exactness, and highly coloured in a manner to throw
into profound melancholy the chauffeur of a coloured supplement
press. We admired and praised; whereupon, still shyly, he
produced more, and yet again more copies of the same cartoon.
When we left, he was reseating himself to the painstaking
valueless labour with which he filled his days. Three times a
week such mail as Juja gets comes in via native runner. We saw
the latter, a splendid figure, almost naked, loping easily, his
little bundle held before him.
Down past the office and dispensary we strolled, by the
comfortable, airy, white man's clubhouse. The headman of the
native population passed us with a dignified salute; a fine
upstanding deep-chested man, with a lofty air of fierce pride. He
and his handful of soldiers alone of the natives, except the
Somalis and syces, dwelt within the compound in a group of huts
near the gate. There when off duty they might be seen polishing
their arms, or chatting with their women.
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