THE COLONEL KILLS THREE ELEPHANTS 157 
he might have turned out very bad/’ said John L.; 
“taken up music or something like that.” 
We also told him that some of the American 
papers were keeping score on the game he had 
killed, and that whenever the cable reported a new 
victim the score up to date would be published like 
a base-ball percentage table. In the last report he 
was quoted as having killed seven lions, while 
Kermit had killed ten. This seemed to amuse him 
very much, although the figures were not strictly 
accurate. His score was nine and Kermit’s eight 
up to date. He was also amused by the habit the 
American papers have of calling him “Bwana 
Tumbo,” which means “The Master with the Stom¬ 
ach,” a title that did not fit him nearly so ap¬ 
propriately then as it might have done before he 
began his active days in the hunting field. He said, 
so far as he knew, the porters called him “Bwana 
Mkubwa,” which means “Great Master,” and is 
applied to the chief man of a safari , regardless of 
who or what he is. It is merely a title that is always 
used to designate the boss. We told him that many 
natives we had met would invariably refer to him as 
the Sultana Mkubwa, or Great Sultan, because they 
had heard that he was a big chief from America. 
He also laughingly quoted the attitude of Wall 
Street as expressed in the statement that they 
“hoped every lion would do his duty.” 
Later, in speaking generally of the odd expe¬ 
riences he had had in Africa, he spoke of one that 
will surely be regarded as a nature fake when he 
