284 
ON SAFAKI 
Presuming that it is intended to penetrate some 
distance back from the railway, a force of at least thirty 
to forty porters, or upwards, will be required—for in 
East Africa beasts of burden are not available, owing to 
the terror of the tsetse-fly. 
Add to these a couple of Somali hunters with two 
gun-bearers apiece, tent-boys, cook and cook’s mates, 
with the requisite number of askaris—as by law 
required—and you have a fair-sized mob of savages. 
Now when one’s whole thoughts and attention are 
absorbed by the primary objects of the expedition, it is 
in the last degree inconvenient to the leaders to be con¬ 
stantly called upon to settle details of organisation, 
discipline and the like. Yet these matters must be 
settled; and upon their efficient execution day by day 
depends nothing less than the comfort and success of 
the entire venture. 
Nor are these duties any slight or insignificant 
business. They involve, for example, the provision, 
superintendence and daily issue of rations, together with 
their due subdivision among the various “ messes ” ; the 
apportionment of loads and other duties, both in camp 
and on the march, to each individual; the setting and 
relief of watches and work-parties for wood and water, 
together with the constant maintenance of order and 
content, and a hundred minor matters. 
All this falls—or should fall—-upon the Neapara 
or headman aforesaid. An efficient headman, strong, 
insighted and forceful, means a contented safari and a 
smooth-running expedition. On the other hand, a feeble 
eye-serving neapara wrecks the whole show. 
All this, it may be urged, is self-evident. Admittedly 
so ; when put thus in plain words, after the event. But 
in practice foresight sometimes fails, and one may only 
come to realise such facts when face to face with an ill- 
managed mob of half-mutinous savages far away in 
African wilds. That event may easily occur should 
your headman belong to the second of the two cate¬ 
gories above defined. I speak from experience of both. 
