African Game Trails 
267 
the porters would all stand ranged by 
their loads; then Tarlton would whistle, 
and a chorus of whistles, horns, and 
tomtoms 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 marching 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: Cun- 
inghame. 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 Philippine forests; Lor- 
ing and Heller of hunting and collecting 
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 rev¬ 
elled in the teeming bird life, with its 
wealth of beauty and color—nor was 
the beauty only of color 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 zebras, big cane-rats, dormice, and 
tiny shrews. Meercats, things akin to 
a small mongoose, lived out in the open 
plains, burrowing in companies like 
prairie dogs, very spry and active, and 
looking like picket pins when they stood 
up on end to survey us. I killed a nine- 
foot python which had swallowed a rab¬ 
bit. Game was not plentiful, but we 
killed enough for the table. I shot a 
wildebeest bull one day, having edged 
up to it on foot, and after missing it 
standing, breaking it down with a bullet 
through the hips, and it galloped across 
my front at three hundred yards. Ker- 
mit killed our first topi, a bull; a beau¬ 
tiful animal, the size of a hartebeest, 
its glossy coat with a satin sheen, vary¬ 
ing from brown to silver and purple. 
By the Guaso Nyero w;e halted for 
several days; and we arranged to leave 
Mearns and Loring in a permanent 
camp, so that they might seriously study 
and collect the birds and small mam- 
