188 ON SAFAEI 



those men, at least, who can seize it. In East Africa 

 one sees forest and jungle assailed, torn from their 

 age-long sleep, and replaced by stock-farm and grazing, 

 with ordered rows of byres and dairies, tillage and 

 paddock. Such detail passes my own knowledge ; but 

 it interested to watch a peer of the realm (and a 

 peeress too) wrestle in handgrips with a fearsome re- 

 volving machine — I forget its name, but it produced 

 butter. This by way of half-an-hour's relaxation before 

 dinner. 



Surely there are thousands in the Mother islands to 

 whom a strenuous life in the Greater Britain over- 

 seas, whatever its risks or prospects, is preferable to 

 dancing constant attendance on poverty and " unem- 

 ployment" at home, where our rulers, blinding their 

 eyes to plainest signs of world-progress, are content to 

 truckle to sordid " Trades-unions " and such-like (because 

 these control millions of mechanical votes), and elect to 

 follow a mob instead of to lead an empire. " Wake up, 

 England," before the awakening comes from without. 



Southward from Kishobo commences a forest-region 

 that extends into the Sotik country, four or five days' 

 march, and I know not how much beyond. This, we 

 understood, was a haunt of buffalo ; nor were we mis- 

 informed, for hardly had daylight broken than I was on 

 burning spoor. These buffaloes — there were three of 

 them — were less than half-an-hour ahead, as evidenced 

 by " sign." 



The sjDot was one of those " forest-opens " that 

 characterise this region — about 100 acres of short sweet 

 grass walled-in by densest timber. Into this timber led 

 the trail. It could not go elsewhere, and our eyes told 

 us there was no game outside. Not knowing myself 

 intimately the ways of buffalo, I had misgivings as to 

 the safety of following close upon their heels into view- 

 less thicket. Not so my companion, a Somali hunter 

 lent me by Lord Hindlip. He treated buffalo as we 

 might rabbits, and, reassured by his total indifference, 

 I followed in. The beasts had not gone far. All they 



