TREK AND CAMP. I97 



to occur to the coast porter to look for the track of your boot, however obvious 

 such tracks may be. 



In East Africa all the natives are very poor in tracking, but in bush and 

 thick countries like Uganda and Nyasaland it is generally possible to march 

 straight on to your new camp, even if part of the way is across unbroken 

 country. Upon the new site a man is left with directions as to camping whilst 

 you go off hunting, feeling quite assured that the porters will find no difficulty 

 in following you to camp. 



Shooting-caravans, or safaris, are generally considered incomplete without the 

 addition of from one to three munificently paid and imposing individuals referred 

 to as "gun-bearers." I have never quite been able to understand exactly how 

 they come to be considered worth the enormous salaries they often receive, or 

 what they do to earn them. They certainly carry a rifle or a gun, and possibly 

 a bag of cartridges, but any porter would be glad to exchange his eighty-pound 

 load for a ten-pound rifle without increase of increment. The gun-bearer cleans 

 the rifles, but so will a porter if he is shown how to do them, and both types of 

 native are equally likely to leave a piece of flannelette jammed in the bore. If 

 you have a native to clean your rifles it is a wise precaution to look down the 

 barrel before going out to shoot, for most natives think that an obstruction of 

 the flannelette kind will be removed the first time the rifle is fired without its 

 ever showing any indication of the blockage having existed. 



But to return to the gun-bearer ; from the few I have chanced to meet I would 

 not consider their bushcraft or knowledge of game of any very high order. So far as 

 I can see, most of them prefer to wear white coats, red tarbooshes, and squeaky boots 

 or noisy sandals when in pursuit of game. Moreover, their masters are constant in 

 their complaints of their cowardly conduct in the presence of dangerous game, so for 

 what reason they are employed I cannot imagine. 



Some natives are very cowardly and timorous, and some are quite the reverse. 

 If you want to secure a native to stand by you in emergencies with a spare rifle you 

 must very carefully select the tribe he is to be chosen from. Many natives, knowing 

 well the habits of game and exactly how far they can go without putting themselves 

 into any real danger, appear stalwart enough on most occasions until some unexpected 

 event happens, and then they bolt. With the majority of savage tribes it is considered 

 no discredit to a man to run away and leave a companion in the lurch. He would say, 

 " I saw the animal looked fierce, and so I ran away," and his companions would think 

 it very wise and proper conduct, and that the man who stopped to get mauled was 

 rather a juggins. It is just as a boxer would say, " I saw that he was about to swing 



