Where are my people?
All asleep, I suppose, the lazy lubbers.

Wait a bit, I'll wake them up." Going to the house he snatched a great sjambok cut from hippopotamus hide, from where it hung on a nail in the wall, and ran towards the group of huts which I have mentioned, roaring out the name Thomaso, also a string of oaths such as seamen use, mixed with others of a Portuguese variety.

What happened there I could not see because boughs were in the way, but presently I heard blows and screams, and caught sight of people, all dark-skinned, flying from the huts.
A little later a fat, half-breed man--I should say from his curling hair that his mother was a negress and his father a Portuguese--appeared with some other nondescript fellows and began to give directions in a competent fashion about our oxen, also as to the killing of a calf.

He spoke in bastard Portuguese, which I could understand, and I heard him talk of Umslopogaas to whom he pointed, as "that nigger," after the fashion of such cross-bred people who choose to consider themselves white men.

Also he made uncomplimentary remarks about Hans, who of course understood every word he said.