158 THE LAND OF THE LION 



and protected from flies, in any sefaris but my own. "Let 

 it go, we will get some more to-morrow," and so they live 

 on tough, badly prepared stuff. 



See your game butchered yourself. If your gunbearer 

 does not know how to do it properly, do it for him, once 

 or twice, after that insist on its being done exactly as you 

 say, and if it is not so done, punish promptly. 



Open the carcass, have all the paunch removed, see 

 that the bladder and big gut are not broken in the operation, 

 but are drawn out whole. Then make the men wipe it 

 out with grass, and leave the skin on the whole carcass if 

 it is a little one, or if a big, on that part which you propose 

 using yourself. It then is clean, and can be hung up dry 

 in camp. Keep it for three or more days, in the shade of 

 a tree or bush, and you will have fair meat. Keep, too, 

 your soup pot going all the time, and let the coarser bits 

 stew, slowly, in it for hours. Then you have a foundation 

 for a hot soup; a good thing to take when you come in 

 fagged. 



Of wild fruits and vegetables there is but poor store. 

 A pretty, yellow-globed tomato, that hangs from a thorny 

 plant, sometimes eighteen inches, and sometimes many 

 feet high, is really of the nightshade variety, and is 

 poisonous. 



The enticing little ground melon, the size and colour of 

 a lemon, you commonly see, is of no use. The palm nuts 

 are too tough for the monkeys. The wild olive berries are 

 so bitter that they taint the usually good flesh of purple 

 pigeons that feed on them greedily. There are some 

 yellow, plumlike fruits (the porters eat) but these are far 

 too sour for a European taste. One most delicious berry 

 I have found, but it does not seem to be common. It 

 grows on a bush very much like a blackberry bush. The 

 fruit is like a large, luscious raspberry, but yellow. 



There is no denying, however, the excellent quality and 



