440 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



our East African safari, although they depended much 

 on the man who beat the drum, at the head of the march- 

 ing column. The East African porters did every kind of 

 work to an accompaniment of chanting. When for in- 

 stance, after camp was pitched, a detail of men was sent 

 out for wood the "wood safari" the men as they came 

 back to camp with their loads never did anything so com- 

 monplace as each merely to deposit his burden at the proper 

 spot. The first comers waited in the middle of the camp 

 until all had assembled, and then marched in order to where 

 the fire was to be made, all singing vigorously and stepping 

 in time together. The leader, or shanty man, would call 

 out "Kooni" (wood); and all the others would hum in 

 unison "Kooni telli" (plenty of wood). "Kooni," again 

 came the shout of the shanty man; and the answer would be 

 "Kooni." "Kooni," from the shanty man; and this time 

 all the rest would simply utter a long-drawn "Hum-m-m." 

 "Kooni," again; and the answer would be "Kooni telli," 

 with strong emphasis on the "telli." Then, if they saw 

 me, the shanty man might vary by shouting that the wood 

 was for the Bwana Makuba; and so it would continue until 

 the loads were thrown down. 



Often a man would improvise a song regarding any 

 small incident which had just happened to him, or a thought 

 which had occurred to him. Drifting down the Nile to 

 Nimule Kermit and the three naturalists and sixty por- 

 ters were packed in sardine fashion on one of the sail- 

 boats. At nightfall one of the sailors, the helmsman, a 

 Swahili from Mombasa, began to plan how he would write 

 a letter to his people in Mombasa and give it to another 

 sailor, a friend of his, who intended shortly to return thither. 



