AFEICA—SOUTH AND EAST 
7 
alone with the “ Safari ”—as a mobilised hunting ex¬ 
pedition is called; for it was obviously inadvisable to 
keep a crowd of between forty and fifty “boys” idle 
among the many temptations of Nairobi. 
In Equatoria, it should be explained, there is none 
of that monotonous “ trekking-in ” by ox-waggon that 
characterised South-African hunting—trekking that often 
occupied wearisome weeks ere a game-country was 
reached. Here the terror of the tsetse-fly has eliminated 
all that, and transport, away from the railway, is entirely 
effected upon the heads of native porters. Thence 
springs the genesis of the “ Safari.” 
A feature in this fever was the rapid recovery. 
On the day when the doctor told me I might start on 
the morrow I found myself too weak to stand upright 
unaided, and next morning required support on both 
sides to limp as far as the station, though barely two 
hundred yards away. It seemed madness to go; yet I 
obeyed and went, with the result that within forty-eight 
hours I could do a twelve-hours’ march and after that 
was as fit as ever, and remained so during three months’ 
hunting. The experience seems eloquent of the superb 
climate of these highlands and of its recuperative 
qualities. 
Possibly there may exist, in that combination of 
equatorial sun-power tempered by high altitude, some 
health-giving property, an elixir, that yet remains to 
be defined by medical science. I feel it nothing less 
than East Africa’s due to mention that after each of my 
expeditions therein (despite the accidental ill-luck of get¬ 
ting malarial fever) I have personally felt reinvigorated 
and about five years younger! Permanent residence 
there may, of course, be quite a different matter. 
On reaching my destination at Eburu that evening, 
after seven hours’ railway journey, it was both surprising 
and grateful to notice the evident pleasure shown by 
our retinue of “ savages ” at my recovery, though I was, 
so far, almost a total stranger to them all. They 
crowded round the carriage, and on seeing that I had 
