THE SEFARI 33 



tentboys, wonderful to say. A good one will valet you, 

 as well as you have ever been valeted in your life. Indeed, 

 I have yet to discover what a good tentboy will not do. 

 But I wrote hastily. My boy John, the best tentboy 

 man every had, will not do one thing he will not under 

 any inducement whatever, make one of a party to beat a 

 swamp or bit of brush for a lion. I have asked him to 

 do for me pretty nearly everything else that an inexperi- 

 enced learned could ask, and he has never once failed to 

 do it well. When I am away he looks after the sefari. 

 When we camp he always chooses the best place for the 

 tents something that is not easy to do. When I am 

 off on a small personal sefari away from main camp, he 

 is my excellent cook. If I want to be called any hour 

 before sunrise, I am never, never, awakened five minutes 

 late. He keeps the accounts of the sefari and writes a far 

 better hand than I do. The comparison does John in- 

 justice, for he writes a singularly good hand. He is 

 cleanliness itself, and it is a pleasure to be waited on by 

 him. I never was able anywhere to get my Jaeger shirt 

 washed without shrinking. I get them a foot too long 

 and a foot too wide, and still periodically give them away 

 to some small poor man, good as new, nay, better, for they 

 are three times as thick, and so much warmer than when 

 I bought them. Well, John, can, in some miraculous 

 way, wash "Jaeger" without shrinking it. Our table- 

 cloth is white oilcloth, but our daily dinner napkins are 

 as clean as at home. He knows where my money is, 

 where my letters are, and always carries all my keys, 

 thank heaven, and never loses them. 



But I am only one of the departments John has to 

 regulate and care for. Every pound of flour, pound of 

 oatmeal, ounce of tea, piece of precious bacon; every 

 dried prune or fig all the ingredients and accessories 

 of our food John dispenses them all. There is not a 



