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Now let me advise you about your topee. I'll choose it for you, then you can't go wrong. Get a large one, mind, or the back of your nice little neck will be burnt the colour of the toast they gave us on the Carnduff shockin' toast, wasn't it? No, not that shape, idiot ... unless you're goin' to ride, are you? If so, you must have one of each a large one, I said what the devil's the use of that?
This morning, from the foot of a high spur, I saw a couple of gawky fellows shambling along in an imitation European dress, and I pricked up my ears it seemed as if Europeans were about. One of the fellows had on a pair of long-legged khaki trousers ludicrously patched with Chinese blue, a tweed coat of London cut also patched with Chinese blue, and a battered Elswood topee.
Besides masses of bedding there is a deck-chair, a typewriter, a case for a topee, or helmet, a gun-case, two portmanteaus, and a box of books, as well as a lunch-basket. The owner, a pleasant-looking, sun-browned Englishman, stands by giving orders to his native servants in Hindustanee, which is a language spoken by the English people to the natives and understood pretty nearly everywhere.
Jan tried vainly to efface herself behind a tailor's dummy, but her back was reflected in the very mirror which also reproduced Sir Langham in the act of trying on a khaki-coloured topee. He saw her and at once hurried in her direction, exclaiming: "Ah, Miss Ross, run to earth! You slipped off this morning without bidding me good-bye, and I've been wonderin' all day where we should meet.
He buckled on his sword, put his revolvers in his pocket, clapped his big solar topee on his head, and then reached down for the morocco traveling case which he had stored away for better security under his berth. A cry of horror burst from his lips as he dragged it out. The lock was broken, and the sides were flapping apart.
The first words I heard in Ugogo were from a Wagogo elder, of sturdy form, who in an indolent way tended the flocks, but showed a marked interest in the stranger clad in white flannels, with a Hawkes' patent cork solar topee on his head, a most unusual thing in Ugogo, who came walking past him, and there were "Yambo, Musungu, Yambo, bana, bana," delivered with a voice loud enough to make itself heard a full mile away.
He was clad in yellow pajamas, his bare feet in native sandals, and held a well pipeclayed topee in one hand. Impatient he was at the delay of the passage-junk coming down from up-river, with her possible trifling cargo, and possible trifling deck-passengers, of which the little steamer already carried enough.
Among the first to appear aft was an immense individual, wearing a loose tussore suit, a huge pith topee, and a black and yellow cummerbund. His face, with its great jowl, wide lipless mouth, short chin, and a pair of goggle eyes, was distinctly of the frog type. "Which of you is Miss Leigh?" he demanded in a loud voice, as he approached the group of girls.
It was on all fours, like a hound on a scent, that I was compelled to travel; my solar topee getting the worse for wear every minute; my skin getting more and more wounded; my clothes at each step becoming more and more tattered.
One of the customers waiting in the verandah was a bearded priest, with black bombazine frock and white topee; a Celt for certain by his hand and eye; and by his polite manners and intelligent expression a Jesuit, I would guess; and there were two ladies spinsters and country bred I'd say, and poor, to judge by pale, lined faces and the look of wear about their pith hats and sun-faded dresses.
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