70 SAFARI 



stayed up wailing all night thinking that she would 

 die; and in the mornings Phishie, the cook, and his 

 helper would bring the most tempting of dainties 

 and look hurt if she could not eat. Nor could any- 

 one be kinder to his children than a native parent. 

 I have seen a father stop his work to speak kindly 

 to, or play with, his offspring who swarmed about 

 him, while he and his wife repaired their poor grass 

 hut, which was constantly being distiu-bed by the 

 storms. 



I was sitting one night in front of our tent by a 

 waterhole, when I heard noise near the back, and 

 running around, found a hyena walking off with a 

 leather chair I had made. Hastily I pulled off a shoe 

 which I had just unlaced and threw it at him. The 

 hyena dropped the chair and made off with the shoe. 

 I had no sooner ceased cursing at him than three black 

 boys came to me on the run, crying. There was a 

 black boy at our camp subject to epileptic fits and this 

 boy, they told me, had been badly burned. A devil, 

 they said, had visited him and told him to jump 

 in the fire. There was nothing to do but make for 

 camp and here I found the poor boy in a horrible 

 condition. His left leg had been burned to the 

 bone, and he writhed on the dirty straw in the hut 

 moaning horribly. 



I did what I could, swabbing out the burns with 

 laboratory cotton, bound him with cloths boiled in 



