280 THE LAND OF THE LION 



pots. These are hollow logs of wood some four feet 

 long, and ten inches or a foot in diameter. A hole at one 

 end admits the swarm. Bees seem to find it hard to secure 

 a safe place to store their honey in any part of the country 

 not heavily wooded, and so the poor things too readily 

 accept the deceptive hospitality provided by the wild man 

 for their undoing. In they go, and soon the rude hive is 

 filled with rich comb. Twice a year the honey lover 

 comes, smothers the lot, and hangs again in the same tree 

 the hollow log. I counted seven of them in one tree that 

 morning. 



The thorn tree when it gains any size is beautiful to 

 look upon. The sportsman and traveller, for all its prickly 

 welcome, owe it no small debt. Its sparse shade is most 

 welcome by day, there is often no other, and its hard tough 

 wood makes an incomparably good fire by night; no wood 

 that I have seen anywhere burns so warmly or so long. No 

 deluge can put it out, and last but not least, it makes a 

 grand cooking fire. It has another charm, viz., the beautiful 

 soft golden green bark that covers its limbs and stem. 

 The feathery flat spreading branches do not shut out the 

 sunshine, and when after drenching rain the sun comes 

 out the graceful lines of the glossy branches are most 

 beautiful to look upon. 



As we wound along the hillsides, and climbed up and 

 down the rocky gorges that ran to the river, the weird 

 sound of the sefari's piping came from the rear. How 

 they manage to keep it up was always a wonder to me. Of 

 pipers we had two; one favoured a short reed pipe from 

 which he was never parted; he always carried it in one 

 of the many corners of the bundle of rags that served him 

 for a coat. The other produced a shriller tone from a 

 water-buck's horn. I love the sound of that rude piping. 

 Whence it comes, that sad minor tune, no one can tell. 

 It reminded me of another sunny morning when I sat on 



