With Flashlight and Rifle * 



Under ordinary conditions carriers will never throw up 

 the sponge ; their traditions forbid them to do this. I have 

 often known them to fall beneath a heavy load, but I have 

 scarcely ever known them abandon it to go and seek for 

 water. On the contrary, it is the custom (dasturi] for those 

 who arrive first at the camp to carry the replenished cala- 

 bash back to revive their friends (rafiki] left behind, it 

 maybe over an hour's journey away. In the generous dis- 

 tribution of food among themselves the carriers are most 

 brotherly and helpful to one another. And under what- 

 ever conditions they find themselves, wet or dry, the blacks 

 know better than any how to find the best spots on the velt, 

 or to discover hidden sources of water, to spy out the rare 

 berry-bearing shrubs, to find wood for fuel where ap- 

 parently no wood is to be seen, to light their camp-fires- 

 quickly, and to contrive sheltered nooks for themselves 

 out of their own cloths and wraps. They know, too, how 

 to keep off vermin by certain herbs, whose strong smell 

 our European nerves can hardly stand. 



Alfred Brehm once said of the Tundra, the Asiatic 

 counterpart of Masai- Nyika, after he had experienced many 

 hardships there: " I shall never go back to the Tundra!"" 

 I also have a great dread of the Nyika. No northerner 

 will ever live there for long. 



Yet those who have learnt to know it are apt to hear 

 it calling to them again and again ! 



