INTRODUCTION xiii Nowhere have Napoleon's maxims more truth than in deahng with the children of Africa. One's hand is on the pulse of raw humanity. Above all remember this one, " If you wish to command men, pretend to love them ; the best way to pretend is to really love them."

Another important point. Learn the language—the men's own language. If you have an interpreter it is seldom satisfactory, and both in that case and when you are satisfied with a very casual colloquial knowledge injustice is often done unwittingly. Who believes the missionary's tale of his thousand converts with his " I did not know the language, but I had a splendid interpreter"? The following instance of " bimbashi Arabic " is often quoted— I have heard worse : " P am the son of a dog. Why are you still here ? I will put it into a parcel, if he says 'ma alaish ' (I beg your pardon) again. I am a bad man," &c. &c., which being interpreted ought to have meant, " You * are the son of a dog. Why did you not come in time 2? I will hit you if you say ' ma alaish ' (means also ' don't excite yourself ') again. I am going to change all this," &c.

I hope the reader will remember when dipping into the following pages that they make no pretence to literary style. They are the outcome of odd notes, letters, and so on, strung together for the purpose of describing life as a bimbashi. The heights given were not Note.—Mixing up (i) ana and enta ; (2) gaya and rah; (3) durb and turd ; (4) badl and battal.