STALKING IN THE NYIKA 



vious visits to the "Dark Continent." While their use- 

 fulness, aside from their being able to carry heavy loads, 

 is limited, they are well trained in making out the tracks 

 of animals, and all possess great power of endurance, 

 especially of bearing thirst long and patiently. The 

 best, in the latter respect, are the warlike and hardy 

 Masai-El Morane and the Wandorobbo. They are far 

 superior to the Wanyamwesi, who come from the well- 

 peopled and well-watered Unyamwesi land. 



But I am as inferior in physical endurance to a 

 Wanyamwesi as he is to a Wandorobbo. The stolid 

 negro has another advantage over the European. How- 

 ever he may suffer from thirst during the day, at night 

 he lies down and soon has all the water he can wish 

 for, in his dreams, while the high-strung European tosses 

 about on his couch, kept awake not only by the feeling 

 of thirst, but by the conscious and subconscious thought 

 of it, which torments him as much as or even more than 

 the physical want. 



Water! Water! How is it possible to make the 

 average European understand what thirst really means, 

 especially thirst in the tropics, which is increased by 

 the effort to find the means of quenching it? With 

 every step that the thirsty explorer takes, under a trop- 

 ical sky, in the hot, dry air, his perspiring body loses 

 more and more of the essential element which he is 

 seeking, for, though thirsty, he cannot afford to rest 

 in the shade of a tree, as every minute is precious. 



347 



