married out of the Mission. So, when that's the state of things at headquarters, an' you get asked in a tone of Daniel-come-to-judgment, 'Do you want to have this man? what would you expect a colleen to do, eh, sir? It's a clear case of intimidation-not intimidation with black thorns an' hot water, may be, but-"

"Oh! get away with you and your black thorns!" exclaimed Mac, struggling between amusement and annoyance. "Don't listen to O'Reilly, he just havers even on. You see Lucy's been in the Mission from a child; the Anguses really stand in the place of parents to her, and they're naturally anxious she should make a good choice. And, of course, it would be more satisfactory for her to remain in the Mission."

"But supposing she really cared for him, would they have a right to interfere in that case? Is she so very young?"

"She's older than most of these girls when they marry. But here comes our friend," said honest Mac, evidently glad to change the subject.

My goods had been got ashore, and the three of us sat down in the veranda to the meal which Chalmers had provided "as per instructions of Mr. Vyner," as he confided to me. I had the less scruple in extending my employer's hospitality to M'Kechnie and O'Reilly, as the latter had contributed nobly to this entertainment out of the Explorer's stores. We had tinned salmon and sardines for entrées, and canned peaches for sweets; while three fowls had been slain and served up to us in the shape of soup and curry, accompanied by locally-grown rice and sweet potatoes, and half a dozen of the infinite varieties of beans wherein the soul of the African delights. Moreover, there were European vegetables, diminutive and heartless cabbages, very crude potatoes, the size of small mar

bles, and turnips not much bigger, but of excellent flavor, which Chalmers had raised in his own garden, and now produced as freewill offerings out of the pride and vain-glory of his heart.

He did not wait on us himself, but he stood by and directed the movements of two flannel-shirted boys, with an air which would have done credit to the most majestic and highly-trained of butlers. The lemonade and soda-water, however, he brought and uncorked himself, observing that the boys were "unused to these appliances."

O'Reilly sipped at his glass, put it down, and looked round in a puzzled sort of way, as if the beverage were incomplete, but nothing else appeared to be forthcoming. He then turned to us with a kind of apologetic and admonitory cough, as though expecting us to supply the omission; but Mac and myself became suddenly obtuse, and waited, with interest, to see what would happen.

"Faith, then, Chalmers, my jewel," he burst out at last, "do ye always serve your soda-water neat?"

"Messrs. Kalkbrenner and Ferreira" -(I could see that he loved to roll out the firm's name in full whenever he got the chance)-"do not keep alcholic liquors in stock, sir; except as medical comforts, sir-"

"Bedad, that's queer then," said O'Reilly, in a stage aside to myself, "for one of them's a German Jew, and the other's a Hollander Jew or a Portagee I'm not sure which. It's against nature, so it is. Chalmers, alanna," he went on aloud, "can ye tell me on your conscience an' honor-which we all know are very honorable an' conscientious entirely-that ye don't require them medical comforts every day of your life, an' frequent in the course of the day?"

Dr. Chalmers looked fixedly at a point on the landscape, which, in accordance with the laws of perspective,

was immediately behind and above O' Reilly's head.

"I am a total abstainer, Captain O'Reilly."

("He is that," said Mac, aside to me. "I'll say that for him.")

"And ye never take a holiday, then?" asked O'Reilly, unabashed.

To which Dr. Chalmers vouchsafed no answer.

"Here, boy!" said O'Reilly, "where's Luwisi? Run down to the boat, ye little spalpeen, and bring-"

"Don't, O'Reilly," said McKechnie. "Can you not wait for your fire-water till we get aboard again-?"

"And it's condemning Mr. Hay to cold water, ye'd be-"

"Not for me," I struck in, hastily. "Please don't send for it for me, O'Reilly-I assure you I prefer lemonade!"

"It puts temptation in the boy's way," said Mac, in a low voice.

I could see that he was really troubled, and began to find the situation uncomfortable, but, to my surprise, O'Reilly readily gave way and took his soda-water and lime-juice with a very good grace. In his heart he had a real liking for Mac-for all their constant sparring-and he was quick enough to see when he had gone too far.

Not long after this they took their leave. Mac was going to sleep on board the steamer, and start at dawn, with two or three boys, on his tramp to the Mission. My road to Mr. Vyner's plantation lay in a different direction.

When they were gone I sat still for a while in the veranda chatting with Kalkbrenner's factotum. I found him really a very intelligent fellow, and the questions he asked about people and things in England showed that he thought more deeply than the educated native usually gets credit for doing. He was communicative enough on all subjects but one-he was unwilling to say much about the Mission or Dr. Angus.

After what I had already heard, it was not difficult to guess why; and I must say I respected him for his reticence.

Next morning I was awakened at dawn by the bugle which summoned the station laborers to their toil. A few minutes later, as I was stretching myself inside my mosquito curtain, and thinking that the world looked chilly and miserable, a small boy entered with coffee and biscuits and a message to the effect-or so I understood him-that the carriers were ready when I was. Accordingly I made all the haste I could, and emerged on the veranda, to find Chalmers assigning the various items of my luggage to their respective carriers and starting them on ahead. They didn't look as if they liked it.

"They are grumbling, sir," he said to me, after a ceremonious greeting, "because they will have to go first and shake the dew off the grass, so that it will not be so wet for you. your machila, sir."

Here is

Two men brought round to the steps a canvas hammock slung to a pole with a mat stretched above to shade me from the rays of the sun, which as yet were not. They held the canvas at what they thought a convenient height above the ground, and grinned sympathetically at my efforts to get in, which resulted, first, in falling out on the other side, and next in hitting my head against the pole. Then Chalmers intervened, and suggested that they should spread it flat on the ground, laying the pole on one side, which, somewhat to my humiliation, they did, and when I had prostrated myself upon it, picked me up tenderly and shouldered the pole. Dr. Chalmers then arranged the cushions behind my head-which requires a certain knack, as I found out afterwards by bitter experience- spread my travelling rug over my legs and tucked it in, and finally-surely the force of thoughtfulness could no further go-inquired whether I was supplied with to

bacco and matches. He had seen me put my pipe into my pocket.

"You will get accustomed, sir, and subsequently you will not be afraid to change your position," he remarked, apparently gathering from my expression that I thought smoking impossible under the circumstances. "Here is the capitao; he understands English. His name is Peter."

Peter came forward, a very solemnfaced young man, with his upper teeth chipped into points like a saw, and blue daisies tattooed where his shirt-front would have been if he had worn such an article. He was attired in a white cotton singlet, and a piece of dark-blue calico round his waist, and shivered in the chill morning air.

"He will tell the men anything you want. I have told him you are going to stop and breakfast in Palombe's. The men with the provisions have gone on." He then addressed Peter at some length in the Yao tongue. "It is all right, sir. You can trust him."

"Good-bye," I said, for my men at this point began to move.

"Oh, no, sir; I will walk with you as far as the end of the plantation." Which he did, and I then took my leave, and the men jogged on with me through a narrow path through a succession of native gardens-apparently containing nothing but weeds and dry maize-stalks -for the crops had just been gathered in. When we left the gardens and got into the tall grass, I began to understand what Chalmers meant about the dew. As it turned out, I was performing for my men the task which had been entrusted to them on my behalf; they had turned aside and hidden themselves till the machila was past, whereby the path being so narrow that my foremost bearer's broad brown shoulders completely filled up the vista, my clothes and the canvas were saturated in a short time. But the narrative of my journey does not belong to this tale. VOL. VII. 346

LIVING AGE.

"And what do you think of Chalmers?" said Mr. Vyner, a few evenings later, when I was resting, after the three days' march, at his hospitable bungalow. "A bit self-important, eh? and his language is quite too much for me at times!"

"Oh, Robert!" said Mrs. Vyner-a a good soul who took most things very literally. "I'm sure Chalmers never swears I never heard him say anything one could object to!"

"On the contrary, my dear, it's the correctness and propriety of his expressions! But he's a good fellow at bottom; and, talk of conceit-he's not half so conceited as that pet of Angus's -what's his name again? AbrahamIsaac-Isaac Kabweza, that's the man -I can't stand him!"

"Oh, Robert!"

"No, Helen, I can't, that's a fact. You won't hear a word against him, I know, because he turns up his eyes in church, and makes night hideous with crooning hymns out of tune. We had him here as kitchen-boy for a month-that was quite enough! I don't say but the fellow means well-and he certainly did his work-but he's a confounded sanctimonious prig, and then he's got hold of all Angus's little ways, speaks like him, walks like him. . . . I find Angus trying enough, in all conscience, though I suppose he also means well; but to have him served up in a second-hand native edition is a little too much!"

"I haven't seen Dr. Angus yet," I remarked. "And from all I hear it seems a little difficult to form a notion of him."

"Well, I won't prejudice you. You'll see and hear him soon enough, and you'll think him a charming, courteous, scholarly old gentleman, who's been very much maligned-for I can guess the sort of talk you've heard on the river-from Ferreira, for instance-or O'Reilly."

I smiled audibly.

"Mind you I'm not one of those who run down missionaries on principle. Apart from other considerations, we do need some one to remind us now and then that the natives are not simply as a boy said to me the other day'hoes for white men to till the ground with.' That's what infuriates some men against them. They've a respect for religion in the abstract-as long as it doesn't interfere with the details of their daily life-and that's where Angus rubs it in, to do him justice."

"But I thought-I understood--Dr. Angus was inclined to be a bit arbitrary himself."

Vyner laughed.

"That's where the difference between clergy and laity comes in, you see! No, but seriously, my dear boy, when you've lived a little longer in this country, and had men under you, like the Roman centurion-and nobody to interfere with you when I'm not round-you see whether the instinct of bossing doesn't grow on you! And Anguswell, he had peculiar ideas to start with, and he was in a peculiar position -had it all his own way out here for years; for you know he was in the country before any trader or planter of us all. The niggers all looked up to him as chief and doctor, and everything else, and thought the sky was going to fall if any one contradicted him. He very seldom saw a white man of anything like his own standing-till quite lately. I don't know how it happens that his colleagues have generally been men of inferior position and education, and as for the three successive Mrs. Angus's, they have all been his humble worshippers. So, is it any wonder that the man takes much the same view of his position as the German Emperor does of his?"

"Robert, I'm sure Mr. Hay is so tired, he's ready to fall asleep in his chair!" I was tired when I came to think of it; and though I would willingly have

asked further questions, I was quite ready to follow Vyner along the veranda to the apartment destined for me, where I slept soundly in spite of the scampering of rats along the rafters, and the howling of hyenas in the long grass outside. Perhaps these uncanny sounds in some indirect way influenced my dreams, for I thought that Dr. Angus (who, as I had never seen him in real life, appeared to me in the likeness of the celebrated portrait of Savonarola) was denouncing me by name to a numerous congregation as being a heretic of several different sorts, and but a shady character in other respects; and having, moreover, acted as best man at the wedding of David Tambala Chalmers, who, for his part, was formally excommunicated then and there.

I was so struck by this vision that I related it at breakfast next morning, greatly to Vyner's amusement, who remarked that first dreams in a new abode were generally prophetic-and he hoped this one would not prove so.

I suppose my early experiences of plantation life were much like other men's. As I am not telling my own story, I will not dwell on them-only remarking that after I had been at Masuku some seven or eight months, I was sent to Luchenya to take charge of a small outlying estate of Vyner's, and entered on the life of a Robinson Crusoe, surrounded by innumerable men Friday.

One hot day in November when the whole country was parched and dusty and gasping for the rains, I was swinging lazily in my hammock in the shadiest corner of the veranda. It was nearly time for the afternoon bugle to be blown, and I was just regarding with dismay the prospect of turning out in the heat to superintend the digging of the coffee-pits, when my boy Kambembe-I remember him as the most portentous breaker of crockery that ever entered my service-came up and announced the arrival of one

"Chalama." Somewhat puzzled, I tumbled out of the hammock and walked round the house to find Dr. Chalmers sitting on the front steps.

He rose to his feet and took off his helmet-a sadly-battered one by this time. His white shirt bore traces of a journey, and he was evidently tired and footsore. Two small boys were squatting at a little distance; beside each, one of the round baskets in which a native stores his provisions, etc., on a journey. They were our friend's attendants and carriers.

"How do you do?" I said. "Glad to see you; come into the shade."

"Thank you, sir. I have been over to Mr. Ferreira's other plantation of Chipande, and I am now on my way back to Port Livingstone. When I heard you were here I thought I would like to come and see you. It is not very much out of the way."

I felt flattered by this mark of attention, though inclined to think it must have been some reason beyond mere politeness. I thought the man looked haggard and worried; and now and then he stole wistful glances at me as if making up his mind to ask me a question.

I was not mistaken-but the question didn't come just then. I had to go down to the coffee, so I left him, after issuing instructions to Kambembe to supply him with tea and other refreshments, and see to the wants of his followers. It was in the evening, when I was once more established in the hammock, and he sitting on the steps in the moonlight, that-after answering my inquiries, and telling me all the news of the Mission, the River and the Lake, the gunboat and the Portuguese at Matapwiri's, and the rumored disturbances up Tanganyika way, he began:

"Mr. Hay, sir-if you were at home in England, and you wanted to be married, and you went to tell the minister, would he refuse?"

"Why, no-not that I ever heard of. Not unless there were some legal obstacle."

He repeated the phrase thoughtfully, and asked me what that was.

"Why-if I'd been married before, you know, and my wife was living-or if I wanted to marry my grandmother -or-or-some one like that. 'A man may not marry his grandmother,' you know. That's in the Prayer Book." "I see. But if there is no legal obstacle?"

"The parson can't refuse-at least I think not. Not if you've had the banns put up properly, or got a license. But if he objected, I should simply go to another parson, to save unpleasantness, or to a Registry Office."

"Registry Office," repeated Chalmers, thoughtfully, as if desirous of getting the words by heart. "What is that, sir?"

I explained, and proceeded to expound, to the best of my ability, the marriage laws of the United Kingdom. And then

"Chalmers, my man," I said, "you've got something on your mind. Can't you tell me about it?"

He looked at me in a sort of wistful, inquiring way-with the eyes that some times make you think a native is like a noble dog, and then said,

"I thought I would like to tell you, sir. That time I first saw you at Port Livingstone, you did not laugh at me like Mr. O'Reilly; and I thought-"

"Well, let's hear," I said. And he told me I may condense his narrative -how he had fallen in love with Lucy -otherwise Chingasonji-and how he had reason to suppose she reciprocated his feelings, and how he had gone to speak to Dr. Angus on the subject, and been snubbed for his pains.

"Do you think you are good enough for Lucy?"-the doctor had demanded -(Chalmers's imitation of his tone and manner-I had made the doctor's

ac