The porters (‘pagazi’), of whom there are several grades, good, bad and indifferent, although they often exasperate their master even to the verge of desperation, are, as a rule, first-rate fellows. A porter will do, considering his pay and food, what few other men, if any, will or can do. He is naturally cheerful and easily pleased, but no one can be more sulky and obstinate. Provided, however, that his stomach is kept full, it is possible to do almost anything with him. On the march--and a march varies considerably, from six to eighteen miles, and sometimes more--the porter will carry, besides his regulation load of 65 lbs., his sleeping-mat, with ten days’ posho on the top of it, a Snider carbine, and belt with ten rounds of ammunition, and also his water calabash (‘mbuyu’). At the end of the march it is his duty to cut down thorn-trees and bushes, and drag them into camp to make the boma, when his work for the day is over, excepting that he has to collect firewood and water for himself and his mess. Should the sportsman go out to shoot, he is ever ready to follow his master for the sake of the meat. I have known many porters, even at the end of a long, tiring, waterless march, who, after quenching their thirst, have filled their calabashes and gone back several miles, of their own accord, to help the stragglers into camp. A porter’s wage is 10 rupees per month and his posho, one ‘kibaba’ (a measure holding about one and a half pound) of whatever can be bought from the natives--flour, beans, &c. On the coast his posho is 8 pice per diem. In a trip of six months’ duration or more, all the men in the caravan, from headman to porter, will demand, and are entitled to, three months’ pay in advance. Three months’ wages in advance is the most ever paid, however long the trip may be. For trips of less than six months, a proportionate advance is made. The principle is a bad one from a European point of view, but it is the custom, and in this respect, as in many others in East Africa, custom is law.