R. E. Baker was engaged as conductor of our waggons on one of our journeys from Bulawayo to the Zambesi, and a more capable cattle-man than he did not, I am sure, exist between the Cape and Cairo.

If an ox wouldn't pull, he made it. If an ox went sick, he cured it with amazing rapidity.

Baker, though English by descent, was a Cape Dutchman through and through. A bad-natured ox he named "Englishman," and flogged the wretched beast into a better frame of mind.

On the other hand, he would walk miles to find good grazing for his cattle, and to see Baker caress an ox was a thing to remember. Not being a cattle-man myself, I thought our conductor was gouging out the eye of an ox. It certainly looked uncommonly like it. He was forcing his fist with a rotary movement into the beast's eye.

In answer to my questioning, he explained that he was caressing the ox, that cattle appreciated the attention; you had to be vigorous or you tickled the poor thing, and oxen didn't like being tickled.

He was obviously right, for each ox, as Baker approached, seemed to know what to expect and tamely submitted.

A few days out from Bulawayo Baker came back from the water carrying fish. He had caught them, he said, in the large water-hole. It never occurred to me that there would be any fish in the almost dried-up rivers which we crossed from time to time. Baker assured me that where there was water there were fish, but you must know how to catch them.

A day or two later we outspanned close to some water-holes. Baker said he was going to catch some fish, and asked me whether I would like to come too. I said I should, and began unpacking a rod and some tackle which I had bought in London with the intention of fishing for tiger-fish in the Zambesi.

Baker watched me unpack and make my selection. He seemed much amused. Presently he drew from his pocket his own tackle, which appeared to me to be a confused mass of tangled string and hooks.

We set out. Baker stopped at a small deep hole containing clear water. It was my turn to smile. The pool he was going to fish in was a little larger than a water-butt.

I went on, and found a fairly long pool. The water was rather muddy, and I found little depth anywhere. However, I hoped for the best, and fished just clear of the bottom. I used as bait a small piece of meat from a wild pigeon's breast, recommended by Baker.

I have a certain amount of patience, but not, I fancy, quite sufficient to entitle me to describe myself as a fisherman. After about two hours of this fiddling, I gave it up and went in search of Baker.

To my amazement, he had quite a score of fish on the grass by his side.

"Did you catch all those?" I asked.

"Yes."

"In that hole?"

"Why, yes."

"How on earth do you do it?"

By way of reply he asked me how many I had caught. I said, "None."

"Ah," said Baker, "you shouldn't fish, you should angle. Watch me."

I sat down and watched.

Baker had a short, thick stick in his hand. From the end of the stick hung a thick piece of whipcord. On the end of the cord he had a stone with a hole in it, what we, as children, used to call a lucky stone. Just above the stone he had tied a skinned pigeon—the whole bird. Hooks radiated in every direction from the bird; hooks set at every conceivable angle—dozens of hooks. From time to time Baker threw a few breadcrumbs at his bait. I could plainly see the small fish cluster round. Now and then he struck sharply. Nearly every time he fouled a small fish, mostly under the jaw or in the belly. Each time he hooked a fish he repeated: "My lad, you shouldn't fish; you should angle."

When we reached the Gwai River, Baker produced a long hand-line with an immense hook on the end of it. The bait he used was a lump of washing soap. I didn't go with him because I wasn't ready and he was impatient to begin.

"We shall catch big barbles here," said Baker.

I followed him, and saw him throw his lump of soap well out into the river. I stood on the bank above and watched.

Baker lit his pipe, looked up and down the river, and at his line. Then he shifted the line to his left hand, which he lifted to his left ear. With his right he made a winding movement close to his head, and said: "'Ullo! Exchange; put me on to Mr. Barble, please, miss."

To my intense amusement, and to Baker's obvious surprise, there was a sharp tug at the line. He remained for a while with his hand suspended near his right ear as though still on the handle of the old-fashioned telephone instrument. Then he gave a violent strike. But the barble—if indeed it was a barble—had had time to spit out the piece of soap and so escape.

Baker, still unaware of my presence, said: "Damn the fellow!" He shifted the line to his right hand, and went through the pantomime of getting on to the Exchange again, this time ringing with his left hand.

"'Ullo! Is that you, Exchange? Put me on to Mr. Barble again, please, miss."

No response from the fish.

"'Ullo! Exchange! What? No answer from Mr. Barble? Gone to lunch, eh?"

I moved off quietly up the river, and in course of time succeeded in catching a mud-fish weighing forty-eight pounds. I came back a couple of hours later, and found Baker had landed two immense fish of the same kind; one weighed fifty-three pounds and the other fifty-nine. He had also caught a poisonous looking eel. How he had landed these monsters he would not tell me; he contented himself with repeating: "My lad, you mustn't fish; you must angle."

When we reached the Zambesi, Baker almost neglected his cattle. He had never seen this grand river before. He at once got out a line and went "angling."

Coming down the river bank, I saw Baker standing on a rock a few yards from the bank.

Sitting on the bank was an old man, watching him.

"Any luck?" said I.

"No."

"Been here long?"

"Not very long, but that old man talks too much to please me."

I looked down at the old man. He looked up at me. He greeted me in the local language. In his language I replied. Whereupon he calmly said: "I have been telling that white man that from the rock on which he stands a crocodile took a woman yesterday."

I hurriedly translated. Baker did no more angling that day! He thought the old man had been saying "How do you do?" to him.

In the end we converted Baker to our way of fishing, so that he became an expert spinner and killed many a noble tiger-fish. But he had a mishap the first day he used a rod which almost decided him not to use one again. He was fishing from the bank for bream, which run large in that part of the river. He used a float for the first time. Presently his float disappeared. Baker struck upwards, using both hands. He pulled his fish out of the water, but with such force that it flew over his head and fell with a splash into a pond behind—free.

I think we just saved him from an immediate return to "angling" by pretending not to have seen his discomfiture.