THE SEFARI 41 
Their eye for country is poor. They are superstitiously 
afraid of strange people, and rhino have a terror for them. 
Let but one of these beasts come within fifty yards of the 
marching line, and no well drilled battalion of infantry 
ever grounded their musket butts with more simultaneous 
ring, than will they throw down their loads, and take to 
the nearest tree. You cannot make assistant gunbearers 
out of these. If your syce is useless, or runs away, the 
chances are you cannot replace him from among fifty of 
them. ‘hey cannot often be taught to skin well or to 
take care of heads and trophies, which here, in the changing 
weather, require the greatest watchfulness, and some skill, 
too. It will be seen, then, that there are many important 
items of sefari life they are in no wise fitted to fill. Now, 
one of the important things to remember in making up a 
working sefari is to so organize it, that within its ranks 
are to be found men who can fill gaps unexpectedly made 
in those ranks. Sickness may disable many of your de- 
pendable men for a time, or your own change of plans, 
or change of country, may result in some of your fellows 
taking their wages, as they have a right to, and leaving 
you. Others will misbehave or prove too incompetent 
to be of further use, and to retain such is but to weaken 
your discipline. Their places must somehow be filled 
and for this you must fall back on the body of your sefari. 
My first sefari were all Wanyamwazi. I had them, 
because I was told, and told truly, they were the best 
porters in Africa. The consequences were, I found 
myself with a body of men who could march anywhere 
and could do little else. They could pitch my tent 
admirably, but could not save my skins or heads. As 
gunbearers, they knew nothing of game, where to look 
for it, or how to kill it. 
In a tight place they always ran away. Not one of them 
could track, only one of them could skin. That sefari 
