He had been with me a whole month, and I had about concluded that I had ensnared an angel, when one day I discovered in him a large inheritance of latent savagery. There was another boy at Efulen about the same age as Lolo. They used the same bucket to fetch water. A dispute arose as to who should have the bucket first. The dispute developed by rapid stages into a quarrel, and then a fight. An extreme unwillingness to part with the bucket was followed by excessive willingness; and when I came in sight, they were passing it back and forth to each other with deplorable vivacity, which threatened to put the bucket out of service for all time. But their savage yells and distortions of countenance were so amazing and impressive that the flying bucket was reduced to an insignificant detail. As I approached they closed in upon each other, then fell to the ground each with his arms tight around the other’s neck and intent upon nothing short of murder. Having rolled over several times, they came to the edge of a very steep hill that had been cleared for a road. Down this hill they rolled together at such a rate that they continued to cling to each other for safety and because there was nothing else to cling to. They received so many jolts and bruises on the way that about the time they reached the bottom, or soon after, a bond of sympathy united them and they were friends. Shortly afterwards I fell sick with a fever and lay in bed several weeks, first in a tent and then in a native hut. It was through those long, weary weeks that I fully tested the patience and the devotion of Lolo, and the little servant of the jungles became a friend whom I shall never forget. As I grew worse the people when approaching had to be warned not to make a noise, and warned again after their arrival, and warned once a minute while they remained. When Lolo was not doing this or engaged in some other urgent service he was sitting beside my bed, sometimes keeping cold water on my head, or fanning me, and if no immediate service was necessary he still sat there so as to be on hand when I required him. There was nothing to look at but bark walls and an earthen floor and he could not even see those very well, for empty salt-bags had been hung over the windows to darken the room. I marvelled at his devotion, which I had done nothing in the world to earn, except that I was fond of him. It was no sense of duty that impelled him, nor any moral obligation—the African is not strong on morals—but it was purely a service of love, and it would have done credit to any white friend. Often when he thought I was asleep I felt his hand laid on my forehead to see if the fever was high. Often, indeed, the little African boy in the service of the white man regards him with an abandoned devotion peculiar to his race, and with a love which his own father has never awakened, although there is bound up with it all the moral possibilities of the boy.