164 
THE NEW AFRICA 
we christened ‘ Blanche 5 with much formality. Each one of the 
expedition formed an attachment for this little thing, that made 
it a matter of honour to carry her by turns later on the march, 
until she was strong enough to hold her own. The charming 
little creature caused us much diversion, and also a good deal 
of anxiety from her wild freaks, sometimes unobserved climbing 
up old leaning stumps or trees, and then by her plaintive little 
bleats calling for assistance to relieve her from the perilous 
position she had got into. To test the sincerity of the feelings 
of our boys for this little thing, I several times suggested that 
it would be far easier to kill it at once, than have all this 
bother; but at the first word to this purport, Chiki or one 
of the other boys would snatch it up, and run out of harm’s 
way with it in his arms, thereby plainly showing that they 
had found a soft place in their rough hearts for the little 
tender animal. If anything was wrong with Blanche, the whole 
camp was in uproar until she was safe again. I mention this 
little incident specially to illustrate that these natives are 
capable of the most generous feelings, and emphasise the fact 
that, spite of the heavy loads they carried, there was always a 
rush at starting for the honour of adding the weight of little 
Blanche to their burdens for the day. 
Hammar had shot sufficient meat for the camp during my 
absence, but as the supply was running short I went next day 
on the back-track down the Liana river, where on the way up 
we had fired several shots at some Harris buck at long ranges, 
probably wounding some. This presumption proved correct, for 
as I neared the spot, we were delighted to see many aasvogels 
(vultures) seated in a tree near a thicket, a sure indication that 
there was ‘something’ feeding on a carcase on the ground 
that kept them at a respectful distance, probably nothing less 
than lions. Unfortunately the wind was wrong, and before we 
reached the spot and got sight of a dead Harris buck over half 
consumed, the lions had skulked away. Judging, however, that 
there must be more than this one dead buck in the neighbour¬ 
hood, wounded by our bullets, and subsequently torn down by 
