^ 28 SAFARI 



down trees, others dug holes, and a third band 

 gathered and bound sheaves of grass for thatching. 

 The temporary shelters were soon completed. 



Osa's share of the work consisted in furnishing 

 game and fish. It was strange, her passion for this 

 sport, for she comes from an inland and rather dry 

 country; but all of her ancestors were quick with 

 the rod and rifle. And she came in so smiling and 

 happy with her glistening fish — one night she had a 

 twenty-five potind catfish — that I could not forbid 

 her to go on her expeditions, though she sometimes 

 strayed pretty far from camp and often forgot to 

 take her gunbearer. Of course, she can shoot and 

 I'd rather have her by my side than most men in a 

 pinch, but now on the plains at night we had already 

 begun to hear the roar of lions and leopards. 



One of the most damaging encounters I have ever 

 had with wild animals in Africa came at this time. 

 I carelessly leaned against a tree down near the river 

 and dislodged a hornet's nest. Its angry inhabitants 

 promptly made tor me, and in a minute I was stung 

 in a dozen places and one got down my back under- 

 neath my shirt. At the end of an hour one eye was 

 closed and the other swollen nearly so ; my upper lip 

 was puffed out big as a goose egg; and I had bumps 

 all over my neck and the top of my head. My back 

 felt like one solid boil. I developed fever and alto- 

 gether had a bad night of it. Worst of all was the 



