Once or twice, after a particularly long and difficult month or
so, when Memba Sasa has been almost literally my alter ego, I
have called him up for special praise. "I am very pleased with
you, Memba Sasa," said I. "You have done your cazi well. You are
a good man."
He accepted this with dignity, without deprecation, and without
the idiocy of spoken gratitude. He agreed perfectly with
everything I said! "Yes" was his only comment. I liked it.
On our ultimate success in a difficult enterprise Memba Sasa set
great store; and his delight in ultimate success was apparently
quite apart from personal considerations. We had been hunting
greater kudu for five weeks before we finally landed one. The
greater kudu is, with the bongo, easily the prize beast in East
Africa, and very few are shot. By a piece of bad luck, for him, I
had sent Memba Sasa out in a different direction to look for
signs the afternoon we finally got one. The kill was made just at
dusk. C. and I, with Mavrouki, built a fire and stayed, while
Kongoni went to camp after men. There he broke the news to Memba
Sasa that the great prize had been captured, and he absent. Memba
Sasa was hugely delighted, nor did he in any way show what must
have been a great disappointment to him. After repeating the news
triumphantly to every one in camp, he came out to where we were
waiting, arrived quite out of breath, and grabbed me by the hand
in heartiest congratulation.
Memba Sasa went in not at all for personal ornamentation, any
more than he allowed his dignity to be broken by anything
resembling emotionalism. No tattoo marks, no ear ornaments, no
rings nor bracelets. He never even picked up an ostrich feather
for his head. On the latter he sometimes wore an old felt hat;
sometimes, more picturesquely, an orange-coloured fillet. Khaki
shirt, khaki "shorts," blue puttees, besides his knife and my own
accoutrements: that was all. In town he was all white clad, a
long fine linen robe reaching to his feet; and one of the
lacelike skull caps he was so very skilful at making.
That will do for a preliminary sketch. If you follow these pages,
you will hear more of him; he is worth it.
VI. THE FIRST GAME CAMP
In the review of "first" impressions with which we are concerned,
we must now skip a week or ten days to stop at what is known in
our diaries as the First Ford of the Guaso Nyero River.
These ten days were not uneventful. We had crossed the wide and
undulating plains, had paused at some tall beautiful falls
plunging several hundred feet into the mysteriousness of a dense
forest on which we looked down.
