AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
AN ACCOUNT OF THE AFRICAN WANDERINGS OF AN AMERICAN 
HUNTER-NATURALIST 
By Theodore Roosevelt 
Illustrations from photographs by Kermit Roosevelt and other members 
OF THE EXPEDITION 
III.—ON SAFARI. RHINOS AND GIRAFFES. 
|HEN 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, pa¬ 
tient, good-humored savages, with some¬ 
thing 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 firm¬ 
ness is even more necessary than kindness; 
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 mis¬ 
deeds and shortcomings; sometimes for no 
conceivable reason, at least from the white 
man’s stand-point. 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 perform¬ 
ance of duty the lack of which they despise 
as weakness. Any little change or excite¬ 
ment is a source of pleasure to them. When 
the march is over they sing; and after two 
or three days in camp they will not only sing, 
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652 
but dance when another march is to begin. 
Of course at times they suffer greatly from 
thirst and hunger and fatigue, and at times 
they will suddenly grow sullen or rebel 
without what seems to us any adequate 
cause; and they have an inconsequent type 
of mind which now and then leads them to 
commit follies all the more exasperating be¬ 
cause they are against their own interest no 
less than against the interest of their em¬ 
ployer. But they do well on the whole, and 
safari life is attractive to them. They are 
fed well; the government requires that they 
be fitted with suitable clothes and given 
small tents, so that they are better clad and 
sheltered than they would be otherwise; and 
their wages represent money which they 
could get in no other way. The safari repre¬ 
sents a great advantage to the porter; who 
in his turn alone makes the safari possible. 
When we were to march, camp was 
broken as early in the day as possible. 
Each man had his allotted task, and the 
tents, bedding, provisions, and all else were 
expeditiously made into suitable packages. 
Each porter is supposed to carry from fifty- 
five to sixty pounds, which may all be in 
one bundle or in two or three. The Amer¬ 
ican flag, which flew over my tent, was a 
matter of much pride to the porters, and 
was always carried at the head or near the 
head of the line of march; and after it in 
single file came the long line of burden 
bearers. As they started, some of them 
would blow on horns or whistles and others 
beat little tomtoms; and at intervals this 
would be renewed again and again through¬ 
out the march; or the men might suddenly 
begin to chant, or merely to keep repeating 
in unison some one word or one phrase 
which, when we asked to have it translated, 
