24 THE LAND OF THE LION 
them at Nairobi rather than at Mombassa, and so save 
the £1 railroad fare per man. ‘That is about all he knows. 
He chooses his agent at Nairobi and seeks advice, says 
how long he intends to be out and what he wants to get; 
whether he will ride or walk; live simply, and content 
himself with a Swahili cook at 30 rupees a month, or 
luxuriate in a Goanese, and pay him 60 rupees; whether 
he is determined to go far afield and stay away from the 
railroad for several months at a time, or make shorter 
trips moving his sefari by rail from place to place. 
These matters settled, his agents undertake to do the 
rest, and promise in so many days to have everything ready 
for a start. There are competent agents at Nairobi and 
other places, and unless there is a great crush of departing 
sefaris, they keep their word, and supply good or fairly 
good men. And so, before he knows it, our traveller has 
embarked on one of the most interesting undertakings 
any sane man can engage in, viz., travelling in a country 
he knows little about, with men about whom he knows 
nothing whatever — men on whom he is absolutely depen- 
dent, as no traveller is dependent on any one in civilized 
lands. 
I have sketched without exaggeration the growth 
and starting of nine sefaris out of ten, and nearly all of 
them go out and come back without serious friction or 
disaster. Things are not stolen, lives are not often lost, 
and this fact alone is an unimpeachable testimony to the 
faithfulness, endurance, and worth of the despised East 
African native. 
A man may, and often does, hurry off in this way. 
He knew nothing when he started of his fellow travellers, 
and except a name here and there, he knows as much and 
no more, when the hurry and scurry of collecting indiffer- 
ent “‘heads”’ of as many different varieties of game is over. 
But I protest this sort of thing is, first, not hunting; second, 
