TREK AND CAMP. 209 



for cooking. This supply is soon exhausted, but from time to time I am able to kill 

 a sheep to replenish the supply, or else I give him the fat from an elephant, rhino, 

 hippo, eland, or giraffe to melt down, other animals appearing to have none. When 

 very hard up I have cut the yellow fat from under the skin of a zebra, but this 

 flavours the cooking unpleasantly. Sometimes the fats of the pachyderms are 

 excellent, whilst at other times they are strong and unpleasant. The oil of the 

 semsem (ufuta) is excellent for cooking, and very good stews may be made with 

 pounded semsem, or better still pounded ground nuts (njugu), which give a very 

 pleasing flavour. 



When I have run out of most tinned provisions I always make my cook 

 manufacture Swahili dishes. If he persists in trying to turn out dishes which he 

 fondly imagines are white man's food, not having the means to make them, he only 

 serves up dull, watery stews and plain roasts. Of local products several very 

 palatable Swahili dishes can be turned out of the curry and mashed-vegetable 

 order, having rich gravies and plenty of chillies. Some Swahilis have an excellent 

 way of slowly cooking meat with salt, which makes it very tender. It takes one 

 or two days to prepare ; still, a cold buffalo tongue prepared in this fashion is 

 first-class. 



Most game-meats seem to vary considerably ; sometimes a particular kind of 

 animal proves to be coarse and unpalatable, and at other times is quite good eating. 

 The meat varies so much that it is very difficult to say which particular kind of animal 

 produces the best meat ; nor is it as a rule possible to guess correctly as to what 

 animal any particular dish of meat belongs. Waterbuck is always supposed to 

 be strong and uneatable, but I have often eaten the meat of this buck and been 

 under the impression that it was some other animal. The meats that I have found 

 best are those of eland, Thomas's kob, reedbuck, and Thomson's gazelle ; these 

 are nearly always good. Many other meats also are very good, but not perhaps 

 as uniformly good as those I have named. 



Fresh milk makes a most welcome addition to the camp table, but it is not 

 often obtainable. If, as a stranger, you pass by a Masai or other kraal, you will 

 find it, as a rule, difficult to make them sell any milk. If you do succeed in 

 overcoming their objections, then the arrangements for obtaining the milk in a clean 

 and pure state are so complicated that as often as not the whole concern falls 

 through. Natives seem to object intensely to pure milk, and to use every artifice at 

 their disposal to make it unpleasant. 



The milk is generally drawn from the cows into gourds dressed with evil- 

 smelling fats and containing a wash of old and putrefied milk. The inside of the 



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