SEEKING ROMANTIC ADVENTURES. 76 



ways: they cannot make more than ten or at most twelve miles a 

 day, even where the trails are good; and when there are none, or 

 when there is much swamp, cannot be got along at all. 



Donkeys are excellent to keep your base of supplies full It 

 is often necessary to have a number of them regularly travelling 

 with potio between the railroad and some selected spot near the 

 country to be explored or hunted. In this way you can keep the 

 field for as long as you please, for it is easy to send ten or twenty 

 porters from your hunting camp to this supply base, while, if you 

 had to send the men fifty or a hundred miles for potio, ten or twenty 

 could not carry any sufficient quantity, and would consume a large 

 part of their loads on the way, and to send more than a small num- 

 ber of men is to cripple your travelling machine and to force you to 

 remain camped till they return. 



Never so denude yourself of men that you cannot march. This 

 is a rule every safari leader should remember. 



THE COOK AN IMPORTANT PERSONAGE. 



The safari cook is an important personage. He literally makes 

 you or mars you, and a good, cleanly and honest cook is not found 

 every day. Still, the East-African has a natural bent for cooking. 

 Quite uninstructed, he cooks his own rice when he is not in too 

 great a hurry; it's none but the man of the East can cook it, and 

 since you eat rice twice a day, that is something to begin on. 



My cook Peter was a friend of three years ago. I had sufifered 

 at his hands and in consequence he had, on at least one occasion, 

 sufifered at mine, or rather at the hands of my official representative, 

 the askari. Peter knew he deserved it, and so bore no grudge. 

 Indeed, had I defrauded him of his just dues, I should have fallen 

 greatly in his estimation. 



When he heard, therefore, that I had returned to the country, 

 he at once sought me out and begged for his old job. His weak 

 point, I well remembered, had been his bread, and good, well-baked, 

 well-raised, yeast bread (not baking-flour abominations) is one of 

 the few things absolutely necessary to health. 



I made immediate inquiries as to whether Peter had been to a 



