MEN OF THE TREES 



the country which I intended to travel on the following 

 day. 



Within half an hour of reaching the new site of a 

 camp, the tent was pitched and a meal prepared. After 

 lunch a siesta was welcome and at three-thirty I was 

 ready for some fruit or tea. At four o'clock I usually 

 started off with my camera and gun to make pictures 

 and shoot for the pot. On Safari one is dependent on 

 the gun for meat and the carriers would not be happy 

 unless their ration of posho ^ was supplemented. At sun- 

 down or just after dark it is a welcome sight that greets 

 one on return to camp; a blazing camp-fire with a hot 

 bath is always a pleasure and after the evening meal it 

 is then one is imbued with a sense of contentment. 



Then it is that dark forms appear from the night 

 and creep up to the blaze, squatting in a friendly circle 

 to relate the doings of the day. Sometimes there is a 

 professional story teller who is the cause of mirth. At 

 other times the camp singer will recite in song what hap- 

 pened in the chase. 



I found it always paid to have a fool in the party, — 

 a buflFoon who would prompt a laugh when the carriers 

 were tired. Such an one was Tumbu Impera, which lit- 

 erally means, Rubber Belly. He always seemed to enjoy 

 being the centre of a joke. How he got his name was 

 this. One evening he came to me with a complaint that 

 one of the other boys had got more food than he had. 

 I remembered a story I had heard as a child of my 



^ Posho — maize meal, which is the principal of these carriers when on Safari. 



130 



