440 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
our East African safari, although they depended much 
on the man who beat the drum, at the head of the march¬ 
ing column. The East African porters did every kind of 
work to an accompaniment of chanting. When for in¬ 
stance, after camp was pitched, a detail of men was sent 
out for wood—the ‘‘wood safari”—the men as they came 
back to camp with their loads never did anything so com¬ 
monplace as each merely to deposit his burden at the proper 
spot. The first comers waited in the middle of the camp 
until all had assembled, and then marched in order to where 
the fire was to be made, all singing vigorously and stepping 
in time together. The leader, or shanty man, would call 
out “Kooni” (wood); and all the others would hum in 
unison “Kooni telli” (plenty of wood). “Kooni,” again 
came the shout of the shanty man; and the answer would be 
“Kooni.” “Kooni,” from the shanty man; and this time 
all the rest would simply utter a long-drawn “Hum-m-m.” 
“Kooni,” again; and the answer would be “Kooni telli,” 
with strong emphasis on the “telli.” Then, if they saw 
me, the shanty man might vary by shouting that the wood 
was for the Bwana Makuba; and so it would continue until 
the loads were thrown down. 
Often a man would improvise a song regarding any 
small incident which had just happened to him, or a thought 
which had occurred to him. Drifting down the Nile to 
Nimule Kermit and the three naturalists and sixty por¬ 
ters were packed in sardine fashion on one of the sail¬ 
boats. At nightfall one of the sailors, the helmsman, a 
Swahili from Mombasa, began to plan how he would write 
a letter to his people in Mombasa and give it to another 
sailor, a friend of his, who intended shortly to return thither. 
