THE GUASO NYERO 325 



song was the endless repetition of some refrain, musically 

 chanted in chorus by the whole party. This repetition of 

 a short sentence or refrain is a characteristic of many 

 kinds of savage music ; I have seen the Pawnees grow 

 almost maddened by their triumph song, or victory song, 

 which consisted of nothing whatever but the fierce, bark- 

 ing, wolf-like repetition of the words, "In the morning the 

 wolves feasted." 



Our first afternoon's march was uneventful; but I was 

 amused at one of our porters and the "safari" ants. These 

 safari ants are so called by the natives because they go 

 on foraging expeditions in immense numbers. The big- 

 headed warriors are able to inflict a really painful bite. 

 In open spaces, as where crossing a path, the column makes 

 a little sunken way through which it streams uninterruptedly. 

 Whenever we came to such a safari ant column, in its 

 sunken way, crossing our path, the porter in question laid 

 two twigs on the ground as a peace-offering to the ants. 

 He said that they were on safari, just as we were, and that 

 it was wise to propitiate them. 



That evening we camped in a glade in the forest. At 

 nightfall dozens of the big black-and-white hornbill, croak- 

 ing harshly, flew overhead, their bills giving them a curi- 

 ously top-heavy look. They roosted in the trees near by. 



Next day we came out on the plains, where there was no 

 cultivation, and instead of the straggling thatch and wattle, 

 unfenced villages of the soil-tilling Kikuyus, we found our- 

 selves again among the purely pastoral Masai ; whose tem- 

 porary villages are arranged in a ring or oval, the cattle 

 being each night herded in the middle, and the mud-daubed, 

 cow-dung-plastered houses so placed that their backs form 

 a nearly continuous circular wall, the spaces between being 

 choked with thorn-bushes. I killed a steinbuck, missed a 

 tommy, and at three hundred yards hit a Jackson's harte- 

 beest too far back, and failed in an effort to ride it down. 



The day after we were out on plains untenanted by hu- 

 man beings, and early in the afternoon struck water by 



