A SAFARI AND WHAT IT IS 
81 
night’s hunting. The porters’ tents are ranged in 
a wide semicircle, and their camp-fires show little 
groups of men squatting about them. Somewhere 
one is playing a tin flute, another is playing a 
French harp, and some are singing. It is a picture 
never to be forgotten, and rich with a charm that 
will surely always send forth its call to the restless 
soul of the man who goes back to the city. 
Sometimes the evening program is different. 
When one of us brings in some exceptional trophy 
there is a great celebration, with singing and native 
dances, and cheers for the Bwana who did the heroic 
deed. The first lion in a camp is a signal for great 
rejoicing and celebrating—however, that is another 
story—the story of my first lion. 
At nine o’clock the tents are closed and all the 
camp is quiet in sleep. Outside in the darkness the 
askari paces to and fro, and the thick masses of 
foliage stand out in inky blackness against the bril¬ 
liant tropic night. We are far from civilization, 
but one has as great a feeling of security as though 
he were surrounded by chimneys and electric lights. 
And no sleep is sweeter than that which has come 
after a day’s marching over sun-swept hills or 
through the tangled reed beds where every sense 
must always be on the alert for hidden dangers. 
