TREK AND CAMP. I99 



country they may suddenly appear close at hand or stampede past, when it is 

 difficult to find a place in which quickly to rest one of the rifles. 



But I appear to be wandering somewhat from my subject, which was that a 

 gaudily dressed, be-booted, cigarette-smoking loafer of a big town like Nairobi 

 does not know enough about game or bushcraft to be worth from forty to eighty 

 rupees a month (which salaries are common for the professional gun-bearer to 

 receive). If you want a man of pluck to follow you, take almost any one of your 

 Wanyamwezi or Manyema porters at a salary of twelve rupees, and he will think 

 himself handsomely paid ; if then you take him into any dangerous position you can 

 always make him a present afterwards if he behaves himself well. If you want a man 

 skilled in bushcraft he will be harder to find, but raw savages can generally be 

 picked up who are fairly useful for local work. When you leave the man's district 

 you can give him a present, large or small, according to the services he has rendered. 

 In most parts of British East Africa it is very easy to find your way about ; especially 

 is this so in the highlands. There is no long grass over the head, and a good view is 

 generally obtainable, whilst there are numbers of landmarks easily recognisable. 



If the sportsman is not used to finding his way about he should take careful note 

 of all landmarks, especially those near camp. He should also mark down all streams, 

 watercourses, and valleys crossed, and their directions. 



The only way to learn to find your way about is by constant practice in trying 

 to work out the way, even at the expense of taking a longer route or wandering 

 farther afield than if directed by a native. There is a good Swahili proverb, " To 

 lose the way is to know the way," meaning that if you lose a path once you will 

 remember that way for ever afterwards. It is by the failures and not by the successes 

 that you gain experience. 



The difficult places in which to find your way are in the thick bush, such as 

 round Voi, and dense forests such as on the escarpments. In both these countries it 

 is not at all an easy matter to locate your camp. The dense forest is often the 

 harder country, as in the highland forests the mists may last well into the afternoon 

 and the sun never come out to guide you. 



Noting detail, whether it is of country, spoor, or anything else, is only a matter 

 of bringing the mind to bear on the subject. Almost everyone has the gift of being 

 observant of detail to some extent, and people develop this gift, consciously or 

 unconsciously, on different subjects, generally confining themselves to those things 

 which especially interest them. 



I have met many men who have spent years in wild countries and yet have 

 not the faintest conception of finding their way about or of observing the details of a 



