| Bobby |
Carter | British government official |
| Leonardo |
da Vinci | Italian polymath |
| T. S. |
Eliot | English poet and essayist |
| Henry |
Fonda | American actor |
| John |
Ford | American film director |
| Joan |
Fountaine | British-American actress |
| Fairley |
Granger | American actor |
| George |
Herbert | 5th Earl of Carnarvon |
| Naomi |
Jacob | English writer, actress, and broadcaster |
| Sammy |
Kisenyi | Ugandan politician and close friend of Bobby |
| Lord |
Krishna | Popular deity in Hinduism |
| Simon |
Lubero | Manager of a company in Zaire |
| Doris |
Marshall | White South African with sharp social sensibilities |
| Mrs |
McCartland | Hotel/lodge owner |
| Mr |
McCartland | Experienced traveler, similar to the narrator |
| John |
Mubende-Mbarara | Ugandan political figure |
| Laurence |
Olivier | English actor and director |
| Jimmy |
Ruhengiri | Radical black leader celebrated in England |
| Louis |
Seize | French transliteration of Louis Sixteenth |
| William |
Somerset Maugham | English writer |
| Robert |
Taylor | American film actor |
| Shirley |
Temple | Actress and former U.S. Chief of Protocol |
| Mr. |
Tramp | Unnamed, impoverished older English man |
| Ogguna |
Wanga-Butere | Bobby's superior |
| Louis |
XVI | Last King of France |
| Hans |
| Austrian boy entangled with Lebanese and Egyptian men |
| Santosh |
| Indian cook who moves from Bombay to Washington, D.C. |
| Sahib |
| White Indian civil servant, Santosh's employer |
| Priya |
| Indian restaurant owner |
| Frank |
| White man traveling with the West Indian narrator |
| Stephen |
| Uncle of the narrator |
| Dayo |
| Younger brother of the narrator |
| Khan |
| Indian South African revolutionary |
| Zulu |
| Young South African refugee |
| Linda |
| British expatriate wife in colonial Africa |
| Martin |
| Photographer |
| Luke |
| Bobby's houseboy |
| Arthur |
| Younger brother of the narrator |
| Conrad |
| Orphaned son of the European protagonist |
| Timothy |
| British civil servant |
| Peter |
| Servant of an old British colonel |
| Carolus |
| Houseboy/servant of Bobby |
| Hathor |
| Ancient Egyptian goddess of love, beauty, joy, and motherhood |
