THE LAND OF FOOTPRINTS 



he did his conscientious best, upheld by the dignity of 

 his profession. 



For to Memba Sasa that profession was the 

 proudest to which a black man could aspire. He 

 prided himself on mastering its every detail, in accom- 

 plishing its every duty minutely and exactly. The 

 major virtues of a gunbearer are not to be despised 

 by anybody; for they comprise great physical cour- 

 age, endurance, and loyalty: the accomplishments 

 of a gunbearer are worthy of a man's best faculties, 

 for they include the ability to see and track game, to 

 take and prepare properly any sort of a trophy, field 

 taxidermy, butchering game meat, wood and plains- 

 craft, the knowledge of how properly to care for fire- 

 arms in all sorts of circumstances, and a half hundred 

 other like minutiae. Memba Sasa knew these things, 

 and he performed them with the artist's love for 

 details; and his keen eyes were always spying for 

 new ways. 



At a certain time I shot an egret, and prepared to 

 take the skin. Memba Sasa asked if he might 

 watch me do it. Two months later, having killed 

 a really gaudy peacocklike member of the guinea 

 fowl tribe, I handed it over to him with instructions 

 to take off the breast feathers before giving it to the 

 cook. In a half hour he brought me the complete 

 skin. I examined it carefully, and found it to be well 



46 



