40 THE LAND OF THE LION 



thing as a safari's marching, sympathy counts for much. 

 When a hard march had to be made, I took care to be 

 behind or alongside the men. The common custom on 

 hunting expeditions is for the bwana to ride miles ahead 

 and wait for the porters to come up. I never could see 

 any possible advantage to anyone in this custom. In diffi- 

 cult country, master and men lose each other to their 

 mutual exasperation; mutual, I say, for though the bwana 

 alone is permitted to relieve his feelings, by swearing at 

 innocent and guilty alike, you may depend the tired porters 

 "feel damn" (as the boy did whose father licked him for 

 swearing), and in the rainy season, which is also the best 

 hunting season, master and men often get needlessly wet, for 

 though on the approach of a storm, camp should be pitched, 

 an African law of Mede and Persian forbids the most 

 undisciplined sefari to camp till it has found its bwana. 



When you hunt, hunt; when you march, march, I have 

 always found to be as good an axiom as in the Rockies. 

 We had out there a cook once who not content with his own 

 job, believed himself to have a heaven-born eye "for 

 country." One day there was a difference of opinion 

 as to the trail to take to next water a long way off. 

 The cook was sure. So he went one way and the wagon 

 another. We camped tired, baked with August heat, 

 in "bad land" country. Sunset came. No cook. Eight 

 o'clock, none. Nine! At ten a miserable wreck of a 

 footsore man stumbled in and sat down to think. He 

 asked for a drink of whiskey, and then quietly said, "If 

 God gives me strength, I'll never again leave the cook 

 wagon." We all roared with laughter and he joined in. 



The sefari should however be prepared to do more 

 than mere porterage, and camp making. It is your moving 

 household and army. The Wanyamwazi stand for the 

 housekeeping part of it and for nothing more. They 

 are, taken by themselves, like lost children in a new country. 



