THE GREEK AND THE COOK 249 our return, leaving only their spoor ; and a long search resulted in a total absence of game being made evident, the sole result of the day being a fine example of the African bustard. This large bird trusts to its legs almost as much as to its wings in putting distance between itself and a pursuer, and its wide expanse of brown wing is only unfurled when pressed. Of the turkey kind, its flesh is excellent eating, if somewhat coarse and high-flavoured, and is greatly sought after.

Consequent on this solitary and disappointing success of the chase occurred an incident which demonstrates the difference between the Greek and the Englishman, as it is reflected in the native mind. It has been referred to before that the African Greek has been of extraordinary assistance in the development of the Sudan, by reason of his enterprise, his excessively frugal habits, and a lack of self-respect, which enable him to live much as the native does. But the native by no means admires this trait, and, indeed, looks down on the Greek more or less with contempt.

Still, there are Greeks and Greeks—a distinction which the native mind does not well appreciate ; and that the engineer of the boat, despite his limited English, was a distinctly superior person, of some education, appeared no reason to my cook why he should be considered in any different light from the others.

So, on the bustard being delivered to Abid—as chance had it, from the hands of the engineer—my