188 
ON SAFARI 
those men, at least, who can seize it. In East Africa 
one sees forest and jungle assailed, torn from their 
age-long sleep, and replaced by stock-farm and grazing, 
with ordered rows of byres and dairies, tillage and 
paddock. Such detail passes my own knowledge; but 
it interested to watch a peer of the realm (and a 
peeress too) wrestle in handgrips with a fearsome re¬ 
volving machine—I forget its name, but it produced 
butter. This by way of half-an-hour’s relaxation before 
dinner. 
Surely there are thousands in the Mother islands to 
whom a strenuous life in the Greater Britain over¬ 
seas, whatever its risks or prospects, is preferable to 
dancing constant attendance on poverty and “ unem¬ 
ployment” at home, where our rulers, blinding their 
eyes to plainest signs of world-progress, are content to 
truckle to sordid “ Trades-unions ” and such-like (because 
these control millions of mechanical votes), and elect to 
follow a mob instead of to lead an empire. “ Wake up, 
England,” before the awakening comes from without. 
Southward from Kishobo commences a forest-region 
that extends into the Sotik country, four or five days’ 
march, and I know not how much beyond. This, we 
understood, was a haunt of buffalo ; nor were we mis¬ 
informed, for hardly had daylight broken than I was on 
burning spoor. These buffaloes—there were three of 
them—w T ere less than half-an-hour ahead, as evidenced 
by “ sign.” 
The spot was one of those “forest-opens” that 
characterise this region—about 100 acres of short sweet 
grass walled-in by densest timber. Into this timber led 
the trail. It could not go elsewhere, and our eyes told 
us there was no game outside. Not knowing myself 
intimately the ways of buffalo, I had misgivings as to 
the safety of following close upon their heels into view¬ 
less thicket. Not so my companion, a Somali hunter 
lent me by Lord Hindlip. He treated buffalo as we 
might rabbits, and, reassured by his total indifference, 
I followed in. The beasts had not gone far. All they 
