CHAPTER IV 
ON SAFARI: RHINO AND GIRAFFES 
When we killed the last lions we were already on 
safari, and the camp was pitched by a water-hole on the 
Potha—a half-dried stream, little more than a string of 
pools and reed-beds, winding down through the sun- 
scorched plain. Next morning we started for another 
water-hole at the rocky hill of Bondoni, about eight 
miles distant. 
Safari life is very pleasant and also very picturesque. 
The porters are strong, patient, good-humoured savages, 
with something childlike about them that makes one 
really fond of them. Of course, like all savages and 
most children, they have their limitations, and in dealing 
with them firmness is even more necessary than kind¬ 
ness. But the man is a poor creature who does not treat 
them with kindness also, and I am rather sorry for him 
if he does not grow to feel for them, and to make them 
in return feel for him, a real and friendly liking. They 
are subject to gusts of passion, and they are now and 
then guilty of grave misdeeds and shortcomings, some¬ 
times for no conceivable reason—at least, from the white 
man’s standpoint. But they are generally cheerful, and 
when cheerful are always amusing; and they work hard 
if the white man is able to combine tact and considera¬ 
tion with that insistence on the performance of duty, the 
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