IN BRITISH EAST AFRICA 
115 
clean white napery and brightly-burning lamps. Marrow- 
soup, followed by cutlets of gazelle and a spatchcocked 
guinea-fowl, then curried venison and a marvellous 
pudding (cornflour from Glasgow, peaches from 
Australia or pine-apple from Natal) form a sample 
menu—the whole washed down with tea, while a final 
<c tot ” completes the feast. 
The best potatoes on earth grow in British East 
Africa; but these, and flour also, are bulky cargo, so 
that, after a week or two, bread and the tuber are 
replaced by camp biscuits. 
Commotion in the camp presently announces the 
arrival of the porters carrying in the spoils of the day. 
Silently, one by one, these emerge from outer darkness, 
and advancing across the ring of firelight, each deposits 
his burden of meat. This is placed in charge of the 
headman, while heads and horns are brought up to us, 
to add to the ever-increasing Golgotha behind our tents. 
At once begins the work of preparing specimens, off- 
skinning, pegging-out hides, rubbing-in wood-ash, etc. 
The responsibility for this rests with the Somali hunters, 
aided by any Swahili recruits they may have enlisted 
and taught this work. 1 Meanwhile, the rest of the 
crowd are busy cooking. Frying-pans and gridirons 
are balanced on three stones at every fire, the fizzling 
of broiling meat sounds through the camp, and soon all 
are gorging on unwonted abundance. 
In this superb climate appetites, even white appe¬ 
tites scarcely recognisable at home, rapidly rival those 
of hyenas. The Swahili, it would appear, remain 
constitutionally at about that standard. 
Another constitutional feature noticed in the Swahili, 
1 Many Swahilis display considerable aptitude in this work, and 
become quite reliable even in the more delicate operations, such as 
cleaning the lips and eye-sockets, the claws of felidse , etc. They 
are keen to be so employed, as not only does the accomplish¬ 
ment give them a preference, but it also means receiving two 
or three rupees a month over and above their regular wage as 
porters. 
