TIBERIUS SMITH
He also took out licenses in Uganda Protectorate, and for the East Africa Protectorate. You'd suppose those stamping-grounds would suffice to fill all the menageries under canvas, yet Tib began to lose all interest in them when we drew near to the Uganda border and he heard of Lake Bango country, which is encompassed by the big Magli marsh. That region is under no protectorate, and although the inhabitants were said to be replete with disagreeable sentiments towards strangers, the old chap was crazy to visit it. The fact it was forbidden ground to the blond race only conjured up in his mind all sorts of eccentric quadrupedal possibilities; and when our head man shivered in the brazen sunlight and said Feeney Scraws existed solely to kidnap foolish transients, and added that fugitives from that realm had related fearsome nursery tales about man-eating white leopards, I knew the dice were juggled for our going to the Bango.
"An anxious inquiry on my part drew forth the information that Mr. Scraws was probably the most accomplished assassin in all Africa. He was so cruel he ought to have been a dentist. He was a native chief, the head man chattered, a Professor of Unpleasant Practices. The white traders gave him his name, it being a travesty on some Arabian appellative. He was further described as one of those amiable individuals who just dote on slaughtering
286
