CHAPTER IV 

 ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 



WHEN we killed the last lions we were already on safari, 

 and the camp was pitched by a waterhole on the Potha, 

 a half-dried stream, little more than a string of pools and 

 reedbeds, winding down through the sun-scorched plain. 

 Next morning we started for another waterhole at the rocky 

 hill of Bondoni, about eight miles distant. 



Safari life is very pleasant, and also very picturesque. 

 The porters are strong, patient, good-humored savages, 

 with something childlike about them that makes one really 

 fond of them. Of course, like all savages and most children, 

 they have their limitations, and in dealing with them firm- 

 ness is even more necessary than kindness; but the man 

 is a poor creature who does not treat them with kindness 

 also, and I am rather sorry for him if he does not grow to 

 feel for them, and to make them in return feel for him, a real 

 and friendly liking. They are subject to gusts of passion, 

 and they are now and then guilty of grave misdeeds and 

 shortcomings; sometimes for no conceivable reason, at least 

 from the white man's stand-point. But they are generally 

 cheerful, and when cheerful are always amusing; and they 

 work hard, if the white man is able to combine tact and 

 consideration with that insistence on the performance of 

 duty the lack of which they despise as weakness. Any 

 little change or excitement is a source of pleasure to them. 

 When the march is over they sing; and after two or three 

 days in camp they will not only sing, but dance when an- 

 other march is to begin. Of course at times they suffer 

 greatly from thirst and hunger and fatigue, and at times 

 they will suddenly grow sullen or rebel without what seems 

 to us any adequate cause; and they have an inconsequent 



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