第57章

"The place was no special use to us.It had been annexed in spite of a tremendous Radical outcry, and, upon my soul, it was one of the few cases where the Radicals had something to say for themselves.All we got by it was half a dozen of the nastiest problems an unfortunate governor can have to face.Ten years before it had been a decaying strip of coast, with a few trading firms in the town, and a small export of ivory and timber.But some years before Tommy took it up there had been a huge discovery of copper in the hills inland, a railway had been built, and there were several biggish mining settlements at the end of it.Deira itself was filled with offices of European firms, it had got a Stock Exchange of its own, and it was becoming the usual cosmopolitan playground.It had a knack, too, of getting the very worst breed of adventurer.I know something of your South African and Australian mining town, and with all their faults they are run by white men.If they haven't much morals, they have a kind of decency which keeps them fairly straight.But for our sins we got a brand of Levantine Jew, who was fit for nothing but making money and making trouble.They were always defying the law, and then, when they got into a hole, they squealed to Government for help, and started a racket in the home papers about the weakness of the Imperial power.The crux of the whole difficulty was the natives, who lived along the river and in the foothills.They were a hardy race of Kaffirs, sort of far-away cousins to the Zulu, and till the mines were opened they had behaved well enough.They had arms, which we had never dared to take away, but they kept quiet and paid their hut-taxes like men.I got to know many of the chiefs, and liked them, for they were upstanding fellows to look at and heavenborn shikaris.However, when the Jews came along they wanted labour, and, since we did not see our way to allow them to add to the imported coolie population, they had to fall back upon the Labonga.At first things went smoothly.The chiefs were willing to let their men work for good wages, and for a time there was enough labour for everybody.But as the mines extended, and the natives, after making a few pounds, wanted to get back to their kraals, there came a shortage; and since the work could not be allowed to slacken, the owners tried other methods.They made promises which they never intended to keep, and they stood on the letter of a law which the natives did not understand, and they employed touts who were little better than slave-dealers.They got the labour, of course, but soon they had put the Labonga into a state of unrest which a very little would turn into a rising.

"Into this kettle of fish Tommy was pitchforked, and when Iarrived he was just beginning to understand how unpleasant it was.As I said before, I did not know him very well, and I was amazed to find how bad he was at his job.A more curiously incompetent person I never met.He was a long, thin man, with a grizzled moustache and a mild sleepy eye-not an impressive figure, except on a horse; and he had an odd lisp which made even a shrewd remark sound foolish.He was the most industrious creature in the world, and a model of official decorum.His papers were always in order, his despatches always neat and correct, and I don't believe any one ever caught him tripping in office work.But he had no more conception than a child of the kind of trouble that was brewing.He knew never an honest man from a rogue, and the result was that he received all unofficial communications with a polite disbelief.I used to force him to see people-miners, prospectors, traders, any one who had something to say worth listening to, but it all glided smoothly off his mind.He was simply the most incompetent being ever created, living in the world as not being of it, or rather creating a little official world of his own, where all events happened on lines laid down by the Colonial Office, and men were like papers, to be rolled into packets and properly docketed.He had an Executive Council of people like himself, competent officials and blind bats at anything else.Then there was a precious Legislative Council, intended to represent the different classes of the population.There were several good men on it-one old trader called Mackay, for instance, who had been thirty years in the country-but most were nominees of the mining firms, and very seedy rascals at that.They were always talking about the rights of the white man, and demanding popular control of the Government, and similar twaddle.The leader was a man who hailed from Hamburg, and called himself Le Foy--descended from a Crusader of the name of Levi--who was a jackal of one of the chief copper firms.He overflowed with Imperialist sentiment, and when he wasn't waving the flag he used to gush about the beauties of English country life the grandeur of the English tradition.He hated me from the start, for when he talked of going 'home' I thought he meant Hamburg, and said so; and then a thing happened which made him hate me worse.He was infernally rude to Tommy, who, like the dear sheep he was, never saw it, and, if he had, wouldn't have minded.But one day I chanced to overhear some of his impertinences, so I hunted out my biggest sjambok and lay in wait for Mr.Le Foy.I told him that he was a representative of the sovereign people, that I was a member of an effete bureaucracy, and that it would be most painful if unpleasantness arose between us.But, I added, I was prepared, if necessary, to sacrifice my official career to my private feelings, and if he dared to use such language again to his Majesty's representative I would give him a hiding he would remember till he found himself in Abraham's bosom.Not liking my sjambok, he became soap and butter at once, and held his tongue for a month or two.