THE SEFARI 53 



their porridge the men gather in groups round the fires 

 of the most popular. Songs begin to rise first from one 

 quarter, then from several. The Somalis produce from 

 somewhere a snowy white cotton robe and kneeling on their 

 mats, chant loudly their evening prayer. Within ten feet 

 of these stoical Mohammedans, a Wakamba dance is most 

 probably in full swing, or Kikuyus are chatting loudly 

 one of their endless minor songs, with leader and chorus. 

 The clatter of laughing and story telling in four or five 

 languages rattles on ceaselessly till eight or nine o'clock, 

 when the askari on guard shouts Kalale! (shut up), 

 and obedient silence falls on the sefari. 



As you lie awake, you wonder at the stillness of the 

 African night. Often there are no sounds but the soft 

 treading of the watch as he replenishes the fire before 

 your tent, and, perhaps, the tinkling* of innumerable 

 frogs refreshed by copious dew. You may hear the rasping 

 cry of the leopard, such a sound as a saw, badly set, makes 

 when drawn through green wood. Or the quite indescrib- 

 able howl of the ubiquitous hyena uttered in any and all 

 cadences, and, perhaps, a distant lion roaring a signal 

 to his mate. 



*When the rainy season begins, quite a number of different frogs join in the night's chorus, and never 

 cease their croaking till day breaks. But one tiny little fellow does not wait for the rains, and seems 

 to need no other encouragement than that afforded him by a plentiful dew. Soon as it begins to fall, he 

 takes up his chanting and it is as though a thousand elfin silver triangles were touched by minute 

 bars of steel. A silvery tinkling sound. 



