ABDI AND ABDULLAH 
35 7 
For a day or two it was the wonder of the camp, 
but he was quite unconscious of it. Music was in 
his soul and the germ of love was churning it up. 
And so he sang as he marched along, and his 
thoughts were racing ahead of him to the “sing 
sing” girls who wait in Nairobi for returning por¬ 
ters with rupees to spend. 
The general average of health in the safari was 
high. Only one porter died in the four months or 
more that we were out. But in spite of the low mor¬ 
tality there were many cases that came up for treat¬ 
ment. Akeley, with his long experience as a hunter 
and explorer, acted as the health department of the 
camp. His three or four remedies for all ills were 
quinine, calomel, witch-hazel, and zinc oxide ad¬ 
hesive plaster. And it was simply amazing what 
those four things could do when applied to the 
naturally healthy constitutions of the blacks. He 
cured a bowed tendon with witch-hazel and adhesive 
plaster in three or four days. A white man would 
have gone to a hospital for weeks. 
There were two common complaints. One was 
fever, but the fiercest fever took to its heels when 
charged by General Quinine and General Calomel. 
The other and more common complaint rose from 
abrasions and cuts. There was always a string of 
porters lined up for treatment and each went away 
happy with large pieces of adhesive plaster decorat¬ 
ing his ebony skin. A simple piece of this plaster 
cured the worst and most inflamed cut, and it was 
seldom that a man came back for a second treat- 
