We cut good sized holes on each of the four sides of their chop
box to afford them ventilation on the march.
The box was always
carried on one of the safari boy's heads: and Funny Face and
Darwin gazed forth with great interest. It was very amusing to
see the big negro striding jauntily along under his light burden;
the large brown winking eyes glued to two of the apertures. When
we arrived in camp and threw the box cover open, they hopped
forth, shook themselves, examined their immediate surroundings
and proceeded to take a little exercise. When anything alarmed
them, such as the shadow of a passing hawk, they skittered madly
up the nearest thing in sight-tent pole, tree, or human form-
and scolded indignantly or chittered in a low tone according to
the degree of their terror. When Funny Face was very young,
indeed, the grass near camp caught fire. After the excitement was
over we found him completely buried in the straw of his box,
crouched, and whimpering like a child. As he could hardly, at his
tender age, have had any previous experience with fire, this
instinctive fear was to me very interesting.
The monkeys had only one genuine enemy. That was an innocent
plush lion named Little Simba. It had been given us in joke
before we left California, we had tucked it into an odd corner of
our trunk, had discovered it there, carried it on safari out of
sheer idleness, and lo! it had become an important member of the
expedition. Every morning Mahomet or Yusuf packed it-or rather
him-carefully away in the tin box. Promptly at the end of the
day's march Little Simba was haled forth and set in a place of
honour in the centre of the table, and reigned there-or
sometimes in a little grass jungle constructed by his faithful
servitors-until the march was again resumed. His job in life was
to look after our hunting luck. When he failed to get us what we
wanted, he was punished; when he procured us what we desired he
was rewarded by having his tail sewed on afresh, or by being
presented with new black thread whiskers, or even a tiny blanket
of Mericani against the cold. This last was an especial favour
for finally getting us the greater kudu. Naturally as we did all
this in the spirit of an idle joke our rewards and punishments
were rather desultory. To our surprise, however, we soon found
that our boys took Little Simba quite seriously. He was a fetish,
a little god, a power of good or bad luck. We did not appreciate
this point until one evening, after a rather disappointing day,
Mahomet came to us bearing Little Simba in his hand.
"Bwana," said he respectfully, "is it enough that I shut Simba in
the tin box, or do you wish to flog him?"
On one very disgraceful occasion, when everything went wrong, we
plucked Little Simba from his high throne and with him made a
beautiful drop-kick out into the tall grass. There, in a loud
tone of voice, we sternly bade him lie until the morrow. The camp
was bung-eyed. It is not given to every people to treat its gods
in such fashion: indeed, in very deed, great is the white man! To
be fair, having published Little Simba's disgrace, we should
publish also Little Simba's triumph: to tell how, at the end of a
certain very lucky three months' safari he was perched atop a
pole and carried into town triumphantly at the head of a howling,
singing procession of a hundred men. He returned to America, and
now, having retired from active professional life, is leading an
honoured old age among the trophies he helped to procure.
Funny Face first met Little Simba when on an early investigating
tour. With considerable difficulty he had shinnied up the table
leg, and had hoisted himself over the awkwardly projecting table
edge. When almost within reach of the fascinating affairs
displayed atop, he looked straight up into the face of Little
Simba! Funny Face shrieked aloud, let go all holds and fell off
flat on his back. Recovering immediately, he climbed just as high
as he could, and proceeded, during the next hour, to relieve his
feelings by the most insulting chatterings and grimaces. He never
recovered from this initial experience. All that was necessary to
evoke all sorts of monkey talk was to produce Little Simba.
Against his benign plush front then broke a storm of
remonstrance. He became the object of slow advances and sudden
scurrying, shrieking retreats, that lasted just as long as he
stayed there, and never got any farther than a certain quite
conservative point. Little Simba did not mind. He was too busy
being a god.
XXIV. BUFFALO
The Cape Buffalo is one of the four dangerous kinds of African
big game; of which the other three are the lion, the rhinoceros,
and the elephant. These latter are familiar to us in zoological
gardens, although the African and larger form of the rhinoceros
and elephant are seldom or never seen in captivity. But buffaloes
are as yet unrepresented in our living collections. They are huge
beasts, tremendous from any point of view, whether considered in
height, in mass, or in power. At the shoulder they stand from
just under five feet to just under six feet in height; they are
short legged, heavy bodied bull necked, thick in every dimension.
In colour they are black as to hair, and slate gray as to skin;
so that the individual impression depends on the thickness of the
coat. They wear their horns parted in the middle, sweeping
smoothly away in the curves of two great bosses either side the
head. A good trophy will measure in spread from forty inches to
four feet. Four men will be required to carry in the head alone.
As buffaloes when disturbed or suspicious have a habit of
thrusting their noses up and forward, that position will cling to
one's memory as the most typical of the species.
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