650 
African Game Trails 
bushes under the bamboos, the white at a 
lower level. The crests and upper slopes 
of the mountains were clothed in the green 
uniformity of the bamboo forest, the trail 
winding dim under its dark archway of tall, 
close-growing stems. Lower down were 
junipers and yews, and then tree ferns and 
strange dragon trees with lily-like frondage. 
Zone succeeded zone from top to bottom, 
each marked by a different plant life. 
In this part of Africa, where flowers 
bloom and birds sing all the year round, 
there is no such burst of bloom and song as 
in the northern spring and early summer. 
There is nothing like the mass of blossoms 
which carpet the meadows of the high moun¬ 
tain valleys and far northern meadows, 
during their brief high tide of life, when one 
short joyous burst of teeming and vital 
beauty atones for the long death of the iron 
fall and winter. So it is with the bird 
songs. Many of them are beautiful though, 
to my ears, none quite 
as beautiful as the best 
of our own bird songs. 
At any rate there is 
nothing that quite cor¬ 
responds to the chorus 
that during May and 
June moves northward 
from the Gulf States 
and southern Califor¬ 
nia to Maine, Minne¬ 
sota, and Oregon, to 
Ontario and Saskat¬ 
chewan; when there 
comes the great ver¬ 
nal burst of bloom 
and song; when the 
may-flower, bloodroot, 
wake-robin, anemone, 
adder’s tongue, liver¬ 
wort, shadblow, dog¬ 
wood, redbud glad¬ 
den the woods; when 
mocking-birds and 
cardinals sing in the 
magnolia groves of the 
South, and 
hermit 
thrushes, 
winter 
wrens, and 
sweetheart 
Suliman Na Meru, one of the elephant guides. 
From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt. 
sparrows 
in the 
spruce and hemlock forests of the North; 
when bobolinks in the East and meadow¬ 
larks East and West sing in the fields; and 
water ousels by the cold streams of the 
Rockies, and canyon wrens in their sheer 
gorges; when from the Atlantic sea-board 
to the Pacific wood thrushes, veeries, rufous- 
backed thrushes, robins, bluebirds, orioles, 
thrashers, cat-birds, house finches, song 
sparrows—some in the East, some in the 
West, some both East and West—and 
many, many other singers thrill the gar¬ 
dens at sunrise; until the long days begin 
to shorten, and tawny lilies burn by the 
roadside, and the indigo buntings trill from 
the tops of little trees throughout the hot 
afternoons. 
We were in the Kikuyu country. On 
our march we met several parties of na¬ 
tives. I had been much inclined to pity 
the porters, who had but one blanket 
apiece; but when I saw the Kikuyus, each 
with nothing but a smaller blanket, and 
without the other clothing and the tents of 
the porters, I realized how much better off 
the latter were simply because they were on 
a white man’s safari. At Neri boma we 
were greeted with the warmest hospitality 
by the District Commissioner, Mr. Browne. 
Among other things, he arranged a great 
Kikuyu dance in our honor. Two thou¬ 
sand warriors, and many women, came in; 
as well as a small party of Masai moran. 
The warriors were naked, or half-naked; 
some carried gaudy blankets, others girdles 
of leopard skin; their ox-hide shields were 
colored in bold patterns, their long-bladed 
spears quivered and gleamed. Their faces 
and legs were painted red and yellow; the. 
faces of the young men who were about 
to undergo the rite of circumcision were 
stained a ghastly white, and their bodies 
fantastically painted. The warriors wore 
bead necklaces and waist belts and armlets 
of brass and steel, and spurred anklets of 
monkey skin. Some wore head-dresses 
made out of a lion’s mane or from the long 
black and white fur of the Colobus monkey; 
others had plumes stuck in their red-daubed 
hair. They chanted in unison a deep- 
toned chorus, and danced rhythmically in 
rings, while the drums throbbed and the 
horns blared; and they danced by us in 
column, springing and chanting. The 
women shrilled applause, and danced in 
groups by themselves. The Masai circled 
