On the way back from Limoru I came past the French Mission and remembered that the Fathers for some time had been promising me seed of a particular kind of lettuce from France. As I pulled up the car, Kamante, who during our drive had not said a word, spoke to me. Fathima was a favourite with Kamante, she was the only human being for whose intelligence I had ever heard him express any kind of respect. ‘Are you,’ he asked me, ‘going into the church to beg the lady in there, who is your friend, to help Fathima?’ The lady in the church, who was my friend, was the Virgin Mary, whose statue Kamante had seen when on Christmas night he had accompanied me to midnight mass. I could not very well say no, so I answered yes, and went into the church before going to the refectory. It was cool in the church, and in the face of the highly vulgar papier mâché statue of the Virgin, with a lily in her hand, there was something soothing and hopeful.

When I came back to my house, Fathima’s baby was born, and she herself was doing well. I congratulated her mother and Farah in his forest exile. The small boy brought into the world that day was Ahamed, called Saufe, who later became a great figure on the farm. Kamante said to me: ‘You see, Msabu, it was good that I reminded you to ask the lady who is your friend to help Fathima.’

Now, one would have imagined that with knowledge of my intimacy with a person of such power, Kamante upon some other occasion would have come back to have me make use of it. But this never happened. There are things which can be done, and other things which cannot be done. And we who know the laws must fall in with them.

In the course of time, however, my squatters tried to find out more about that King of my own country who had written the letter. They asked me if he was tall, and were here, I believe, still under the impression of the personality of the Prince of Wales, who had dined on the farm, and who had made them wonder at the fact that a person of such great might should be so slim and slight. I was pleased to be able to reply truthfully that there was not a taller man in his kingdom. They then wanted to know whether the horse on which he rode was more kali – fierce – than my own horse, Rouge; then again, if he laughed. This last must have been a matter of importance to the Natives in their relations with us. ‘Your kabilla’ – tribe – they said to me, ‘is different to those of the other white people. You do not get angry with us as they do. You laugh at us.’