402 
African Game Trails 
there was a little rear extension in which I 
bathed—a hot bath, never a cold bath, is 
almost a tropic necessity; there was a 
ground canvas, of vital moment in a land of 
ticks, jiggers, and scorpions; and a cot to 
sleep on, so as to be raised from the ground. 
Quite a contrast to life on the round-up! 
Then I had two tent boys to see after my 
belongings, and to wait at table as well as 
in the tent. Ali, a Mohammedan negro, 
was the chief of the two, and spoke some 
English, while under him was “Bill,” a 
speechless black boy; both of them faithful 
beasts; one, a sorrel, I named Tranquillity, 
and the other, a brown, had so much the 
cob-like build of a zebra that we christened 
him Zebra-shape. One of Kermit’s two 
horses, by the way, was more romanti¬ 
cally named after Huandan, the sharp-eared 
steed of the Mabinogion. Cuninghame, 
lean, sinewy, bearded, exactly the type of 
hunter and safari manager that one would 
wish for such an expedition as ours, had 
ridden up with us on the train, and at the 
station we met Tarleton, and also two set¬ 
tlers of the neighborhood, Sir Alfred Pease 
My first “Tommy” (Thompson’s Gazelle). 
and efficient. Two other Mohammedan 
negroes, clad like the askaris, reported to 
me as my gun-bearers, Muhamed and Ba- 
kari; seemingly excellent men, loyal apd 
enduring, no trackers, but with keen eyes 
for game, and the former speaking a little 
English. My two horse boys, or saises, were 
both pagans. One, Hamiri, must have 
had in his veins much Galla or other non¬ 
negro blood; derived from the Hamitic, 
or bastard Semitic, or at least non-negro, 
tribes which, pushing slowly and fitfully 
southward and south-westward among the 
negro peoples, have created an intricate 
tangle of ethnic and linguistic types from 
the middle Nile to far south of the equator. 
Hamiri always wore a long feather in one of 
his sandals, the only ornament he affected. 
The other sais-was a silent, gentle-mannered 
black heathen; his name was Simba, a 
lion, and as I shall later show he was not 
unworthy of it. The two horses for which 
these men cared were stout, quiet little 
and Mr. Clifford Hill. Hill was an Afri¬ 
cander. He and his cousin, Harold Hill, 
after serving through the South African 
war, had come to the new country of Brit¬ 
ish East Africa to settle, and they repre¬ 
sented the ideal type of settler for taking 
the lead in the spread of empire. They 
were descended from the English colonists 
who came to South Africa in 1820; they 
had never been in England, and neither had 
Tarleton. It was exceedingly interesting 
to meet these Australians and Africanders, 
who typified in their lives and deeds the 
greatness of the English Empire, and yet 
had never seen England. 
As for Sir Alfred, Kermit and I were to 
be his guests for the next fortnight, and we 
owe primarily to him, to his mastery of 
hunting craft and his unvarying and gen¬ 
erous hospitality and kindness, the pleasure 
and success of our introduction to African 
hunting. His life had been one of such 
varied interest as has only been possible in 
