378 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



pushing behind. The rickshaw men ran well, and sang 

 all the time, the man in the shafts serving as shanty-man, 

 while the three behind repeated in chorus every second 

 or two a kind of clanging note; and this went on without 

 a break, hour after hour. The natives looked well and 

 were dressed well; the men in long flowing garments of 

 white, the women usually in brown cloth made in the old 

 native style out of the bark of the bark cloth tree. The 

 clothes of the chiefs were tastefully ornamented. All the 

 people, gentle and simple, were very polite and ceremonious 

 both to one another and to strangers. Now and then we 

 met parties of Sikh soldiers, tall, bearded, fine-looking men 

 with turbans; and there were Indian and Swahili and 

 even Arab and Persian traders. 



The houses had mud walls and thatched roofs. The 

 gardens were surrounded by braided cane fences. In the 

 gardens and along the streets were many trees; among them 

 bark cloth trees, from which the bark is stripped every 

 year for cloth; great incense trees, the sweet scented gum 

 oozing through wounds in the bark; and date palms, in the 

 fronds of which hung the nests of the golden weaver birds, 

 now breeding. White cow herons, tamer than barn-yard 

 fowls, accompanied the cattle, perching on their backs, 

 or walking beside them. Beautiful kavirondo cranes came 

 familiarly round the houses. It was all strange and at- 

 tractive. Birds sang everywhere. The air was heavy 

 with the fragrance of flowers of many colors; the whole 

 place was a riot of lush growing plants. Every day there 

 were terrific thunder-storms. At Kampalla three men 

 had been killed by lightning within six weeks; a year or two 

 before our host, Knowles, had been struck by lightning 



