Part 3 (1/2)
We will suppose the case fairly serious I listened to the man's story, if necessary called a feitnesses, delivered judgid attention, fairly bristling virtue, like the good dog standing by at the punishs And in his attitude was a subtle triumph, as one would say: ”You see! Fool with et funny with US!” Judgment pronounced-we have supposed the case serious, you remember-Memba Sasa himself applied the lash I think he really enjoyed that; but it was a restrained joy The whip descended deliberately, without excitement
The man's devotion in unusual circuer or exciteood reeable difficulty is a different matter
One day we marched over a country of thorn-scrub desert Since two days we had been cut loose fro on a small a were a conical hill, over the horizon, and the knowledge of a river somewhere beyond How far beyond, or in what direction, we did not know We had thirtylot, picked up anyhow in the bazaars They were soft, ill-disciplined and uncertain For five or six hours they et very hot, and sole They had, of course, no intention of deserting, for their only hope of surviving lay in staying with us; but their loads had becoood man behind, but without gle over ht; but in this thorn-scrub desert, that looks all alike, a ht is fifty yards lost We would march fifteen or twenty minutes, then sit down to wait until the rearled in, perhaps a half hour later And we did not dare move on until the tale of our thirty was coress was very slow, and as the fierce equatorial sun increased in strength, beca We were quite out of water, and we had no idea where water was to be found To cole
My single coreed that I was to push on as rapidly as possible to locate the water, while he was to try to hold the caravan together Accordingly, Memba Sasa and I marched ahead We tried to leave a trail to follow; and we hoped fervently that our guess as to the streaood one At the end of two hours and a half we found the water-a beautiful jungle-shaded stream-and filled ourselves up therewith Our duty was accomplished, for we had left a trail to be followed Nevertheless, I felt I should like to take back our full canteens to relieve the worst cases Me to him seized the canteens and disappeared
At the end of two hours more camp was made, after a fashi+on; but still four uiding theave them up If they had followed our trail, they should have been in long ago; if they had missed that trail, heaven knohere they were, or where we should go to find the, and, to tell the truth, ere both very rees in the shade under an equatorial sun Theanize a search next day As we debated these things, to us came Memba Sasa
”I want to take 'Winchi,'” said he ”Winchi” is his name for my Winchester 405
”Why?” we asked
”If I can take Winchi, I will find the men,” said he
This was entirely voluntary on his part He, as well as we, had had a hard day, and he had ave hiht he returned with themen
Perhaps a dozen times all told he volunteered for these special services; once in particular, after a fourteen-hour day, he set off at nine o'clock at night in a soaking rainstorm, wandered until two o'clock, and returned unsuccessful, to rouse ravely that he could not find them For these services he neither received nor expected special reward And catch hi outside his strict ”cazi” except for US
We were always very cerenified in our relations on such occasions Memba Sasa would suddenly appear, deposit the rifle in its place, and stand at attention
”Well, Memba Sasa?” I would inquire
”I have found the ive him his reward It was either the word ”assanti,” or the tords ”assanti sana,” according to the difficulty and importance of the task accomplished They mean simply ”thank you” and ”thank you veryand difficult month or so, when Meo, I have called him up for special praise ”I am very pleased with you, Memba Sasa,” said I
”You have done your cazi well You are a good nity, without deprecation, and without the idiocy of spoken gratitude He agreed perfectly with everything I said! ”Yes” was his only comment I liked it
On our ultireat store; and his delight in ultimate success was apparently quite apart froreater kudu for five weeks before we finally landed one The greater kudu is, with the bongo, easily the prize beast in East Africa, and very few are shot By a piece of bad luck, for him, I had sent Mens the afternoon we finally got one The kill was made just at dusk C and I, with Mavrouki, built a fire and stayed, while Kongoni went to careat prize had been captured, and he absent Mehted, nor did he in any way shohatthe news triumphantly to every one in ca, arrived quite out of breath, and grabbed ratulation
Memba Sasa went in not at all for personal ornanity to be broken by anything rese es nor bracelets He never even picked up an ostrich feather for his head On the latter he sometimes wore an old felt hat; soe-coloured fillet Khaki shi+rt, khaki ”shorts,” blue puttees, besides his knife and my own accoutre fine linen robe reaching to his feet; and one of the lacelike skull caps he was so very skilful at
That will do for a prelies, you will hear more of him; he is worth it
VI THE FIRST GAME CAMP
In the review of ”first” impressions hich we are concerned, we must now skip a week or ten days to stop at what is known in our diaries as the First Ford of the Guaso Nyero River
These ten days were not uneventful We had crossed the wide and undulating plains, had paused at so several hundred feet into the mysteriousness of a dense forest on which we looked down There we had enjoyed so; had made the acquaintance of a few of the Masai, and had looked with awe on our first hippo tracks in the mud beside a tiny ditchlike streaht of later experiencerealize that these were nothing at all; but at the tiht was quite wonderful At the close of the day's march andered out with our rifles to see e could find Everything was new to us, and we had our radually improved until we had overcome the difficulties peculiar to this new country and were doing as well as we could do anywhere
Now, at the end of a hard day through scrub, over rolling bold hills, and down a scrub brush slope, we had reached the banks of the Guaso Nyero