CHAPTER IV 



ON SAFARI : RHINO AND GIRAFFES 



When we killed the last lions we were already on 

 safari, and the camp was pitched by a water-hole on the 

 Potha — a half-dried stream, little more than a string of 

 pools and reed-beds, winding down through the sun- 

 scorched plain. Next morning we started for another 

 water-hole at the rocky hill of Bondoni, about eight 

 miles distant. 



Safari life is very pleasant and also very picturesque. 

 The porters are strong, patient, good-humoured savages, 

 with something childlike about them that makes one 

 really fond of them. Of course, like all savages and 

 most children, they have their limitations, and in dealing 

 with them firmness is even more necessary than kind- 

 ness. But the man is a poor creature who does not treat 

 them with kindness also, and I am rather sorry for him 

 if he does not grow to feel for them, and to make them 

 in return feel for him, a real and friendly liking. They 

 are subject to gusts of passion, and they are now and 

 then guilty of grave misdeeds and shortcomings, some- 

 times for no conceivable reason — at least, from the white 

 man's standpoint. But they are generally cheerful, and 

 when cheerful are always amusing ; and they work hard 

 if the white man is able to combine tact and considera- 

 tion with that insistence on the performance of duty, the 



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