46 Notes on Soiith African Hunting, 
The Curse of “ Boys.” 
watered, and more undulating country than that 
we had been passing through. Next day we 
started at dawn, or rather we wanted to start 
at dawn, but the boys,” like all other natives, 
utterly declined to move before the sun was 
well up. This is always a great difficulty. 
White men naturally prefer walking in the 
cool, but natives, or boys as they are indis¬ 
criminately called, always feel the cold. This 
may possibly be due to their wearing no clothes ; 
but my conviction is that they do it out of pure 
cussedness. If one does make them start they 
loaf along carrying a great lighted stick, and 
every now and then they turn out to make a 
small grass fire to get warm at. It is better 
to wait till the sun is up, as it is almost hotter 
work kicking the boys than walking in the 
midday sun. As I said, we started soon alter 
dawn; and for the next three hours waded 
along through most awful sand. Then we had 
a cup of coffee and a small bit of meat, and 
went on again. Through that interminable 
sand we ploughed for about twenty-five miles, 
with the sun broiling us, and the flies devour¬ 
ing us half cooked, till at last we reached water 
