26G THE GUASO NYERO [ch. xi 



camp " posho," or food for the porters. He announced 

 that they were all in readiness in a letter to Cuning- 

 hame, which was meant to be entirely respectful, but 

 which sounded odd, as it was couched in characteristic 

 Baboo English. The opening lines ran : " Dear K-ham. 

 the donkeys are altogether deadly." 



At last fifty Kikuyus assembled — they are not able to 

 carry the loads of regular Swahili porters — and I started 

 that moment, though it was too late in the afternoon to 

 travel more than three or four miles. The Kikuyus 

 M^ere real savages, naked save for a dingy blanket, 

 usually carried round the neck. They formed a 

 picturesque safari ; but it was difficult to make the 

 grasshopper-like creatures take even as much thought 

 for the future as the ordinary happy-go-lucky porters 

 take. At night if it rained they cowered under the 

 bushes in drenched and shivering discomfort ; and yet 

 they had to be driven to make bough shelters for them- 

 selves. Once these shelters were up, and a little fire 

 kindled at the entrance of each, the moping, spiritless 

 wretches would speedily become transformed into beings 

 who had lost all remembrance of ever having been wet 

 or cold. After their posho had been distributed and 

 eaten they would sit, huddled and cheerful, in their 

 shelters, and sing steadily for a couple of hours. Their 

 songs were much wilder than those of the regular 

 porters, and were often warlike. Occasionally, some 

 " chanty man," as he would be called on shipboard, 

 improvised or repeated a kind of story in short sentences 

 or strophes ; but the main feature of each song was the 

 endless repetition of some refrain, musically chanted in 

 chorus by the whole party. This repetition of a sliort 

 sentence or refrain is a characteristic of many kinds of 

 savage music. I have seen the Pawnees grow almost 



