Kazimoto helped even more than he by discovering a native within the palisade who could speak a common tongue.
Their villagers held a very noisy council on their side of the thorn obstruction, under the apparent impression that it was sound- and bullet-proof.

It was beginning to be pretty obvious that a man who advised volleying through the crevices with spears was winning the argument when Kazimoto detected familiar accents and raised his voice.
After that the barricade was dragged aside within ten minutes and we entered, if not in honor, at least in temporary safety.
Luxury is a question of contrast.

That evening in a hut assigned to us by the chief, squatting on the trodden cow-dung floor, leaning against the dried-mud sides, with a little fire of sticks in the midst to give us light and keep mosquitoes at a distance at the expense of almost unbearable heat, we ate porridge made from mtama as they call their kaffir corn, and washed it down with milk--good rich cows' milk, milked by Kazimoto into our own metal pot instead of their unwashed gourds.
Lucullus never dined better.
The feast was only rather spoiled by two things: we all had chiggers in our feet--the minute fleas that haunt the dust of native villages and insert themselves under toe-nails to grow great and lay their eggs.
(Nearly every native in the village had more than one toe missing.) And the chief felt obliged to insert his smelly presence among us and ask innumerable idiotic questions through the medium of his interpreter and Kazimoto.

He received some astonishing answers, but would not have been satisfied with anything more reasonable.

We wanted him satisfied, and gave our interpreter free rein.
The main trouble was we had nothing of value to offer him.