332 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



These days alone in the wilderness went by very pleas- 

 antly, and, as it was for not too long, I thoroughly enjoyed 

 being entirely by myself, so far as white men were con- 

 cerned. By this time I had become really attached to my 

 native followers, who looked after my interest and comfort 

 in every way; and in return I kept them supplied with 

 plenty of food, saw that they were well clothed, and forced 

 them to gather enough firewood to keep their tents dry and 

 warm at night for cold, rainy weather is always hard upon 

 them. 



AH, my faithful head tent boy, and Shemlani his as- 

 sistant poor Bill the Kikuyu had left because of an in- 

 tricate row with his fellows were both, as they proudly 

 informed me, Arabs. On the East African coast the so- 

 called Arabs almost all have native blood in them and 

 speak Swahili; the curious, newly created language of the 

 descendants of the natives whom the Arabs originally en- 

 slaved, and who themselves may have in their veins a little 

 Arab blood; in fact, the dividing line between Swahili 

 and Arab becomes impracticable for an outsider to draw 

 where, as is generally the case, it is patent that the blood of 

 both races is mixed to a degree at which it is only possible 

 to guess. Ali spoke some English; and he and Shem- 

 lani were devoted and efficient servitors. Bakhari the gun- 

 bearer was a Swahili, quite fearless with dangerous game, 

 rather sullen, and unmoved by any emotion that I could 

 ever discover. He spoke a little English, but it could not be 

 called idiomatic. One day we saw two ostriches, a cock 

 and a hen, with their chicks, and Bakhari with some ex- 

 citement said, "Look, sah! ostrich! bull, cow, and pups!" 

 The other gun-bearer, Gouvimali, in some ways an even 

 better hunter, and always good-tempered, knew but one 

 English phrase; regularly every afternoon or evening, after 

 cleaning the rifle he had carried, he would say, as he left 

 the tent, his face wreathed in smiles, " G-o-o-d-e-bye ! " 

 Gouvimali was a Wakamba, as were Simba and my other 

 sais, M'nyassa, who had taken the place of Hamisi (Hamisi 



