154 
TREKKING 
[CH. VII 
his horses, which were killed, although within a boma. 
One night lions came within threatening proximity of 
our ox-waggons ; and we often heard them moaning in 
the early part of the night, roaring when full fed toward 
morning ; but we were not molested. 
The safari was in high feather, for the days were cool, 
the work easy, and we shot enough game to give them 
meat. When we broke camp after breakfast, the porters 
would all stand ranged by their loads ; then Tarlton 
would whistle, and a chorus of whistles, horns, and tom¬ 
toms would answer, as each porter lifted and adjusted 
his burden, fell into his place, and then joined in some 
shrill or guttural chorus as the long line swung off at 
its marahing pace. After nightfall the camp-fires 
blazed in the cool air, and as we stood or sat around 
them each man had tales to tell—Cuninghame and 
Tarlton of elephant-hunting in the Congo, and of 
perilous adventures hunting lion and buffalo ; Mearns 
of long hikes and fierce fighting in the steaming Philip¬ 
pine forests ; Loring and Heller of hunting and collect¬ 
ing in Alaska, in the Rockies, and among the deserts of 
the Mexican border; and always our talk came back to 
strange experiences with birds and beasts, both great 
and small, and to the ways of the great game. The 
three naturalists revelled in the teeming bird life, with 
its wealth of beauty and colour ; nor was the beauty 
only of colour and shape, for at dawn the bird songs 
made real music. The naturalists trapped many small 
mammals : big-eared mice looking like our white-footed 
mice, mice with spiny fur, mice that lived in trees, rats 
striped like our chipmunks, rats that jumped like 
jerboas, big cane-rats, dormice, and tiny shrews. Meer- 
cats, things akin to a small mongoose, lived out in the 
open plains, burrowing in companies like prairie-dogs, 
