CH. XII] A FUNERAL DANCE 361 
middle of the day and feeding in the morning and 
afternoon; otherwise his observations of their habits 
coincided with mine. 
The next ten days Kermit spent in a trip to the coast, 
near Mombasa, for sable—the most beautiful antelope 
next to the koodoo. The cows and bulls are red, the 
very old bulls (of the typical form) jet black, all with 
white bellies ; like the roan, both sexes carry scimitar¬ 
shaped horns, but longer than the roans. He was alone 
with his two gun-bearers and some Swahili porters ; he 
acted as headman himself. They marched from Mom¬ 
basa, being ferried across the harbour of Kilindini in a 
dhow, and then going some fifteen miles south. Next 
day they marched about ten miles to a Nyika village, 
where they arrived just in the middle of a funeral dance 
which was being held in honour of a chief’s son who had 
died. Kermit was much amused to find that this death 
dance had more life and go in it than any dance he had 
yet seen, and the music—the dirge music—had such 
swing and vivacity that it almost reminded him of a 
comic opera. The dancers wore tied round their legs 
queer little wickerwork baskets, with beans inside, which 
rattled in the rhythm of their dancing. Camp was 
pitched under a huge baobab-tree, in sight of the Indian 
Ocean ; but in the middle of the night the ants swarmed 
in and drove everybody out, and next day, while Kermit 
was hunting, camp was shifted on about an hour’s march 
to a little grove of trees by a brook. It was a well- 
watered country, very hilly, with palm-bordered streams 
in each valley. These wild palms bore ivory nuts, the 
fruit tasting something like an apple. Each village had 
a grove of cocoanut palms, and Kermit found the cool 
cocoanut milk delicious after the return from a long 
day’s hunting. 
Each morning he was off before daylight, and rarely 
