274 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



Native negroes, of many different tribes, flocked to the 

 race-course and its neighborhood. The Swahilis, and those 

 among the others who aspired toward civilization, were well 

 clad, the men in half European costume, the women in 

 flowing, parti-colored robes. But most of them were clad, 

 or unclad, just as they always had been. Wakamba, with 

 filed teeth, crouched in circles on the ground. Kikuyu 

 passed, the men each with a blanket hung round the shoul- 

 ders, and girdles of chains, and armlets and anklets of 

 solid metal; the older women bent under burdens they 

 carried on the back, half of them in addition with babies 

 slung somewhere round them, while now and then an un- 

 married girl would have her face painted with ochre and 

 vermilion. A small party of Masai warriors kept close 

 together, each clutching his shining, long-bladed war spear, 

 their hair daubed red and twisted into strings. A large 

 band of Kavirondo, stark naked, with shield and spear and 

 head-dress of nodding plumes, held a dance near the race- 

 track. As for the races themselves, they were carried on in 

 the most sporting spirit, and only the Australian poet Pat- 

 terson could adequately write of them. 



On August 4th I returned to Lake Naivasha, stopping 

 on the way at Kijabe to lay the corner-stone of the new 

 mission building. Mearns and Loring had stayed at Nai- 

 vasha and had collected many birds and small mammals. 

 That night they took me out on a springhaas hunt. Thanks 

 to Kermit we had discovered that the way to get this curi- 

 ous and purely nocturnal animal was by "shining" it with 

 a lantern at night, just as in our own country deer, coons, 

 owls, and other creatures can be killed. Springhaas live 

 in big burrows, a number of them dwelling together in one 

 community, the holes close to one another, and making 

 what in the West we would call a "town" in speaking of 

 prairie dogs. At night they come out to feed on the grass. 

 They are as heavy as a big jack-rabbit, with short forelegs, 

 and long hind legs and tail, so that they look and on occasion 

 move like miniature kangaroos, although, in addition to 



