CH. XI] SAFARI ANTS 267 



maddened by their triumph song, or victory song, which 

 consisted of nothing whatever but the fierce, barking, 

 wolf-hke repetition of the words, "In the morning the 

 wolves feasted." 



Our first afternoon's march was uneventful ; but 1 

 was amused at one of our porters and the " safari " ants. 

 These safari ants are so called by the natives because 

 they go on foraging expeditions in immense numbers. 

 The big-headed warriors are able to inflict a really pain- 

 ful bite. In open spaces, as wliere crossing a path, the 

 column makes a little sunken way, through wliich it 

 streams uninterruptedly. Whenever we came to such 

 a safari ant colunm, in its sunken way, crossing our 

 path, the porter in question laid two twigs on the 

 ground as a peace-offering to the ants. He said that 

 they were on safari, just as we were, and that it was 

 wise to propitiate them. 



That evening we camped in a glade in the forest. ^Vt 

 nightfall dozens of the big black-and-white hornbill, 

 croaking harshly, flew overhead, their bills giving them 

 a curiously top-hea^ y look. They roosted in tlie trees 

 near by. 



Next day we came out on the plains, where there was 

 no cultivation, and, instead of the straggling thatch and 

 wattle, unfenced villages of the soil-tilling Kikuyus, we 

 found ourselves again among the purely pastoral Masai, 

 whose temporary villages are arranged in a ring or oval, 

 the cattle being each night herded in the middle, and 

 the mud-daubed, cow-dung-plastered houses so placed 

 that their backs form a nearly continuous circular wall, 

 the spaces between being choked with thorn bushes. 

 I killed a steinbuck, missed a tommy, and at three 

 hundred yards hit a Jackson's hartebeest too far back, 

 and failed in an effort to ride it down. 



