ABSTRACT
I did not expect to be able to obtain a servant in Mkokotoni where mine was the only European household, however I said" Bring him in, Cokkai."
One of the boys who rnalUled the station rowing-boat appeared. Now he might very well have come on his own, but in the East it is almost impossible for anyone to nlake a personal request personally. Cokkai too would use an intermediary if he wanted something for himsel£ As I found that the boat boy in question had had previous houseboy experience in Zanzibar, in Pemba and in Dar es Salaam, I took him on, and thus it was that Zaidi came into my service. He was native of Mkokotoni, and, I suppose, a year or two older than mysel£ Like most Africans he did not know his birthday but he told me that he was small enough to be put in a soap-box and hidden by his mother under a bed when, in 1896, Seiyid Khalid, a son of the famous Sultan Barghash, in an effort to usurp the throne had barricaded himself in the palace and been bombarded by the guns of the British fleet.
