20 THE PLEISTOCENE AGE [ch. i 



or other non-negro blood ; derived from the Hamitic, 

 or bastard Semitic, or at least non-negro, tribes which, 

 pushing slowly and fitfully southward and south- 

 westward among the negro peoples, have created an 

 intricate tangle of ethnic and linguistic types from the 

 middle Nile to far south of the Equator. Hamisi always 

 wore a long feather in one of his sandals, the only 

 ornament he affected. The other sais was a silent, 

 gentle-mannered black heathen ; his name was Simba, 

 a lion, and, as I shall later show, he was not unworthy 

 of it. The two horses for which these men cared were 

 stout, quiet little beasts ; one, a sorrel, I named Tran- 

 quillity, and the other, a brown, had so much the coblike 

 build of a zebra that we christened him Zebra-shape. 

 One of Kermit's two horses, by the way, was more 

 romantically named after Huandaw, the sharp-eared 

 steed of the '" Mabinogion." Cuninghame, lean, sinewy, 

 bearded, exactly the type of hunter and safari manager 

 that one would wish for such an expedition as ours, had 

 ridden up with us on the train, and at the station we 

 met Tarlton, and also two settlers of the neighbourhood, 

 Sir Alfred Pease and Mr. ChfTord Hill. Hill was an 

 Africander. He and his cousin, Harold Hill, after 

 serving through the South African War, had come to 

 the new country of British East Africa to settle, and 

 they represented the ideal type of settler for taking the 

 lead in the spread of empire. They were descended 

 from the EngUsh colonists who came to South Africa 

 in 1820 ; they had never been hi England, neither had 

 Tarlton. It was exceedingly interesting to meet these 

 Australians and Africanders, who typified in their lives 

 and deeds the greatness of the British Empire, and yet 

 had never seen England. 



As for Sir Alfred, Kermit and I were to be his guests 



