ON the Portuguese side of the Rovuma River, some eighty miles east of Lake Nyasa, stands-or rather stood-the village of Mitimoni.

In its day it had been quite an important village. Formerly it was the seat of the local government, for the Portuguese commandant had his house there, from which he dispensed justice to the surrounding district. In our day, however, Mitimoni had fallen from this high estate, and when we first knew it, was nothing more than a rather large Yao village, presided over by a native police "capitao " and two constables.

These three gentlemen ruled with a rod of iron. They took the first-fruits of all harvests, especially of the rice crop. They commandeered the pick of the young girls. They levied toll on the river ford in the dry weather, and extracted an exorbitant fee for the canoe passage in the wet season. They inaugurated a system of free labour for themselves and their households, and collected a private tax, in addition to the regular Government poll tax, from every one in the district. Furthermore, they systematically robbed the stranger within the gate, and charged lodgings at a very high figure to every traveller passing through the

village. In fact, if ever the old adage "Put a beggar on horseback " was exemplified anywhere in this world, it was in the conduct of those three native police officials at the village of Mitimoni.

The groans of the oppressed population ascended unto heaven, but-and this was more important-they did not penetrate through the two hundred miles of jungle that separated Mitimoni from the nearest Portuguese administrator. The police watched that.

Many times my gorge has risen at the tales that drifted through the bush to our camp, but, of course, we could do nothing. We had not the ear of the Portuguese governor any more than the native had. We could neither of us speak Portuguese-and the governor could speak no language but Portuguese-so that we had to converse with him through his native interpreter, we speaking Yao and the native translating us into Portuguese. Naturally, the interpreter (who, of course, drew large sums of backsheesh from the police) told the governor anything but what we were complaining of. Then, turning to us, he would naïvely promise that 'the matter would be looked into !" This was as far as we ever got, but we bided our time.

Our chance came when these three policemen stopped one of our boys, and through some misunderstanding as to where he came from, severely thrashed him prior to robbing him of his little store of money, and of our letters which he was bringing to the camp. Now although we could not interfere between the villagers and the police, we most certainly could between our own boys and the police, and as soon as ever I could get away, I set off with a small following-including the maltreated boy-for the village of Mitimoni. It lay rather over one hundred miles west of our camp, but the going was fairly easy, and the journey was accomplished in five days.

The police capitao was most obliging, and offered me the choice of half the houses in the village to sleep in. As a matter of fact, I elected to sleep in my own tents, and there, early next morning, I held my court. Having heard the evidence for and against my boy, I found a verdict against the police, and amid the terrified silence of the villagers, administered the thrashing of his life to Police Capitao Gombameti. I also gave a smaller dose to the two constables by way of thoroughly impressing upon them that the person of the white man and all his household were sacrosanct to police oppression.

To appreciate what followed it is necessary to go back a little to the previous year, when we had been doing a lot of

hippo shooting. With an eye to our future comfort we had made it a rule that wherever we stopped for a night, the Angoni people must build us a house. In later days these houses were remarkably useful as dâk-bungalows, for use when we were out after elephant.

Now during the dry season, whole villages would flock to the Rovuma to catch fish. Often they stayed for a month or more, and in time we began to realise that these hordes of natives were using our houses as a sort of home from home. In this way the places were becoming rapidly uninhabitable -from a European point of view-so we took steps to rectify matters. Boys were sent out from our camp with instructions to throw out any natives who might be found occupying the Bwanas' houses, and afterwards to rebuild the houses and leave everything habitable.

This was done, and a good many sore heads were contracted in the doing of it. Imagine, then, my surprise when my partner shortly afterwards returned from a shoot and informed me that twenty-five natives had not only taken possession of two of our houses but were actually digging their gardens round them! was the limit, and we still debating the best way of once and for all putting a stop to this kind of thing, when word was brought in that a native had been caught by a lion.

This

were

strong line about the dogs," remarked R. We might do worse than broadcast that yarn.

The more we thought about it the better we liked the idea, and eventually we decided to carry it out. Up and down the countryside went the word that the Bwanas' "dogs (lions) had been warned to guard all their property, and to eat anybody whom they found living in the Bwanas' houses. The effect of this was highly satisfactory, and we had no further cause of complaint.

To return now to the Mitimoni affair.

Having executed justice on the police I arranged to leave the next day, but before going I called together the whole village, including the police, and delivered a short but powerful homily on the future penalties attached to the beating of any of the Bwanas' boys. I was rather good at this sort of thing, and made a vast impression. Feeling my eloquence beginning to fade before I had properly rounded off the period, I searched in my mind for a suitable climax. The sight of a mangy dog in the village gave me the idea. Looking the capitao straight in the eye, I said, as impressively as I could