Behind each
chair straight as a ramrod stood a neat khaki-clad boy. They
brought us food, and presented it properly on the left side,
waiting like well-trained butlers. We might have been in a London
restaurant. As three of us were Americans, we felt a trifle
dazed. The porters, having finished the distribution of their
loads, squatted on their heels and watched us respectfully.
And then, not two hundred yards away, four ostriches paced slowly
across the track, paying not the slightest attention to us-our
first real wild ostriches, scornful of oranges, careless of
tourists, and rightful guardians of their own snowy plumes. The
passage of these four solemn birds seemed somehow to lend this
strange open-air meal an exotic flavour. We were indeed in
Africa; and the ostriches helped us to realize it.
We finished breakfast and arose from our chairs. Instantly a half
dozen men sprang forward. Before our amazed eyes the table
service, the chairs and the table itself disappeared into neat
packages. M'ganga arose to his feet.
"Bandika!" he cried.
The askaris rushed here and there actively.
"Bandika! bandika! bandika!" they cried repeatedly.
The men sprang into activity. A struggle heaved the varicoloured
multitude-and, lo! each man stood upright, his load balanced on
his head. At the same moment the syces led up our horses, mounted
and headed across the little plain whence had come the four
ostriches. Our African journey had definitely begun.
Behind us, all abreast marched the four gunbearers; then the four
syces; then the safari single file, an askari at the head bearing
proudly his ancient musket and our banner, other askaris
flanking, M'ganga bringing up the rear with his mighty umbrella
and an unsuspected rhinoceros-hide whip. The tent boys and the
cook scattered along the flank anywhere, as befitted the free and
independent who had nothing to do with the serious business of
marching. A measured sound of drumming followed the beating of
loads with a hundred sticks; a wild, weird chanting burst from
the ranks and died down again as one or another individual or
group felt moved to song. One lot had a formal chant and response.
Their leader, in a high falsetto, said something like
"Kuna koma kuno,"
and all his tribesmen would follow with a single word in a deep
gruff tone
"Za-la-nee!"
All of which undoubtedly helped immensely.
The country was a bully country, but somehow it did not look like
Africa. That is to say, it looked altogether too much like any
amount of country at home. There was nothing strange and exotic
about it. We crossed a little plain, and up over a small hill,
down into a shallow canyon that seemed to be wooded with live
oaks, across a grass valley or so, and around a grass hill. Then
we went into camp at the edge of another grass valley, by a
stream across which rose some ordinary low cliffs.
That is the disconcerting thing about a whole lot of this
country-it is so much like home. Of course, there are many wide
districts exotic enough in all conscience-the jungle beds of the
rivers, the bamboo forests, the great tangled forests themselves,
the banana groves down the aisles of which dance savages with
shields-but so very much of it is familiar. One needs only
church spires and a red-roofed village or so to imagine one's
self in Surrey. There is any amount of country like Arizona, and
more like the uplands of Wyoming, and a lot of it resembling the
smaller landscapes of New England. The prospects of the whole
world are there, so that somewhere every wanderer can find the
countryside of his own home repeated. And, by the same token,
that is exactly what makes a good deal of it so startling. When a
man sees a file of spear-armed savages, or a pair of snorty old
rhinos, step out into what has seemed practically his own back
yard home, he is even more startled than if he had encountered
them in quite strange surroundings.
We rode into the grass meadow and picked camp site. The men
trailed in and dumped down their loads in a row.
At a signal they set to work. A dozen to each tent got them up in
a jiffy. A long file brought firewood from the stream bed. Others
carried water, stones for the cook, a dozen other matters. The
tent boys rescued our boxes; they put together the cots and made
the beds, even before the tents were raised from the ground.
Within an incredibly short space of time the three green tents
were up and arranged, each with its bed made, its mosquito bar
hung, its personal box open, its folding washstand ready with
towels and soap, the table and chairs unlimbered. At a discreet
distance flickered the cook campfire, and at a still discreeter
distance the little tents of the men gleamed pure white against
the green of the high grass.
V. MEMBA SASA
I wish I could plunge you at once into the excitements of big
game in Africa, but I cannot truthfully do so. To be sure, we
went hunting that afternoon, up over the low cliffs, and we saw
several of a very lively little animal known as the Chandler's
reedbuck. This was not supposed to be a game country, and that
was all we did see. At these we shot several
times-disgracefully. In fact, for several days we could not
shoot at all, at any range, nor at anything. It was very sad, and
very aggravating. Afterward we found that this is an invariable
experience to the newcomer. The light is new, the air is
different, the sizes of the game are deceiving.
