nglish shipping
companies that would prove of such value to the Deutsch Ost-Afrika Line.
So jubilant was she at the news that I had to give her a half-holiday to
recover; twice only in the four months we worked together was Elizabeth
as happy: once when she got a letter, by the infinite kindness of
General Smuts, from her husband, and another time when a letter came
from Switzerland to tell her of her baby in Hamburg, her mother, and the
two brothers that were in the cavalry in the advance into Russia. At
first, I must confess, I thought that this charming and intelligent lady
had offered to work for us, especially as she refused our pay, in order
to get information of the regiments and the prevailing diseases and sick
rate of our army. Soon I had reason to know that she played the game,
and stayed only in order to work to help the prisoners of her own
people, and our wounded too. For any day her husband might want help
from us or might be brought in wounded to our hospital, where she could
nurse and tend to him herself. Our men liked to be attended by her, for
she was gentler far than I and never short-tempered with them.

Nazoro we found in chains on our arrival for the offence of having
attacked a German, and only his usefulness in the operating theatre
saved him from the prison. In spite of the disapproval of Elizabeth and
other Germans, I struck off the chains, feeling that he very probably
had good excuse for his offence. But the Germans never failed to point
out what a dangerous man he was. Once indeed he was slack and casual, so
I promptly ordered him to be "kibokoed," and thereafter I could find no
fault in his work and behaviour. Possessed of three wives, for he was
passing rich on sixteen rupees a month, he asked one day for leave to
celebrate the arrival of his first son. This I granted, only to be
assailed a fortnight later by requests for leave to attend his
grandmother's funeral, and to see a sick friend. But these had a
familiar ring about them, and were not successful in procuring the lazy
day that is so beloved by African humanity.

But Ali was of a different mould; small and slight and anxious to
please, he was nevertheless swift to leave his work when once my back
was turned. Forsaken in love--for he had been deserted by his wife--he
had forsworn the sex and buried his sorrows in "Pombe," the Kaffir beer
that effectually deprived him of what little intelligence he had. He was
a "fundi" at taking out