CH. xii] A FUNERAL DANCE 361 



middle of the day and feeding in the morning and 

 afternoon ; otherwise his observations of their habits 

 coineided with mine. 



The next ten days Kermit spent in a trip to the eoast, 

 near Mombasa, for sable — the most beautiful antelope 

 next to the koodoo. The cows and bulls are red, the 

 very old bulls (oP the typieal form) jet black, all with 

 white bellies ; like the roan, both sexes carry scimitar- 

 shaped horns, but longer than the roans. He was alone 

 with his two gun-bearers and some Swahili porters ; he 

 acted as headman himself They marched from Mom- 

 basa, being ferried across the harbour of Kilindini in a 

 dhow, and then going some fifteen miles south. Next 

 day they marched about ten miles to a Nyika village, 

 where they arrived just in the middle of a funeral dance 

 which was being held in honour of a chief's son who had 

 died. Kermit was nuich anmsed to find that this death 

 dance had more life and go in it than any dance he had 

 yet seen, and the music — the dirge music —had such 

 swing and vivacity that it almost reminded him of a 

 comic opera. The dancers wore tied round their legs 

 queer little wickerwork baskets, with beans inside, w^hich 

 rattled in the rhythm of their dancing. Camp was 

 pitched under a huge baobab- tree, in sight of the Indian 

 Ocean ; but in the middle of the night the ants swarmed 

 in and drove everybody out, and next day, while Kermit 

 w^as hunting, camp was shifted on about an hour's march 

 to a little grove of trees by a brook. It was a well- 

 watered country, very hilly, with palm-bordered streams 

 in each valley. These wild palms bore ivory nuts, the 

 fruit tasting something like an apple. Each village had 

 a grove of cocoanut palms, and Kermit found the cool 

 cocoanut milk delicious after the return from a long- 

 day's hunting. 



Each morning he was off before daylight, and rarely 



