HUNTING IN AFRICA 131 



you are likely to find your meat taken from the carcass 

 you intended for your boys, unless you have left a man to 

 guard it (while you went to camp to order porters out), 

 and it is not always possible to leave a man on guard. 



It is wonderful to see the vultures come to a carcass. 

 Not one can be seen with a glass, as you first sit down, 

 near the fallen game. But in ten minutes, the broad black 

 wings are sure to be sailing far above you. The coming 

 of the wild man is, to me, almost as mysterious. I have 

 walked away from my game as though I intended aban- 

 doning it, and going to a distance, have hidden behind some 

 shelter from which I could command the country with my 

 glass. In a wonderfully short time a black dot of a head 

 would be cautiously lifted from the grass, or miles away 

 I would see one, two, three, tiny black figures running 

 along in single file, as they always travel, all making a 

 true course for the game they somehow smelled out so 

 strangely. 



The lesson I would have drawn from this is: Have 

 someone in your sefari who can talk to the N'dorobo. 

 Sometimes these people can speak a little Massai or Kikuyu, 

 oftener they cannot, and in lion country especially, it is 

 well to be on good terms with them, they are exceedingly 

 timid, and quite harmless. Though sefari men are generally 

 rather nervous of meeting them, saying they fear their 

 poisoned arrows. 



In Massai land, if you happen on a country where there 

 is little game, but where the lions still are heard, you can 

 reckon on the hearty support of the herdsmen in hunting 

 them down. Where game is plentiful lions seem generally 

 to leave the herds alone, but when game is scarce then the 

 lion becomes bold indeed and exceedingly dangerous. 

 Then he will, by some cunning device or another, stampede 

 the crowded occupants of the kraal, and spite of spear 

 and firebrand, take his pick, and carry it off. In such 



