SAFARI ANTS 
267 
CH. Xl] 
maddened by their triumph song, or victory song, which 
consisted of nothing whatever but the fierce, barking, 
wolf-like repetition of the words, “ In the morning the 
wolves feasted.” 
Our first afternoon’s march was uneventful; but I 
was amused at one of our porters and the “ safari ” ants. 
These safari ants are so called by the natives because 
they go on foraging expeditions in immense numbers. 
The big-headed warriors are able to inflict a really pain¬ 
ful bite. In open spaces, as where crossing a path, the 
column makes a little sunken way, through which it 
streams uninterruptedly. Whenever we came to such 
a safari ant column, in its sunken way, crossing our 
path, the porter in question laid two twigs on the 
ground as a peace-offering to the ants. He said that 
they were on safari, just as we were, and that it was 
wise to propitiate them. 
That evening we camped in a glade in the forest. At 
nightfall dozens of the big black-and-white hornbill, 
croaking harshly, flew overhead, their bills giving them 
a curiously top-heavy look. They roosted in the trees 
near by. 
Next day we came out on the plains, where there was 
no cultivation, and, instead of the straggling thatch and 
wattle, unfenced villages of the soil-tilling Kikuyus, we 
found ourselves again among the purely pastoral Masai, 
whose temporary villages are arranged in a ring or oval, 
the cattle being each night herded in the middle, and 
the mud-daubed, cow-dung-plastered houses so placed 
that their backs form a nearly continuous circular wall, 
the spaces between being choked with thorn bushes. 
I killed a steinbuck, missed a tommy, and at three 
hundred yards hit a Jackson’s hartebeest too far back, 
and failed in an effort to ride it down. 
