Sasa that the great prize had been captured, and he absent. Memba

Sasa was hugely delighted, nor did he in any way show what must
have been a great disappointment to him. After repeating the news

triumphantly to every one in camp, he came out to where we were
waiting, arrived quite out of breath, and grabbed me by the hand

in heartiest congratulation.
Memba Sasa went in not at all for personal ornamentation, any

more than he allowed his dignity to be broken by anything
resembling emotionalism. No tattoo marks, no ear ornaments, no

rings nor bracelets. He never even picked up an ostrich feather
for his head. On the latter he sometimes wore an old felt hat;

sometimes, more picturesquely, an orange-coloured fillet. Khaki
shirt, khaki "shorts," blue puttees, besides his knife and my own

accoutrements: that was all. In town he was all white clad, a
long fine linen robe reaching to his feet; and one of the

lacelike skull caps he was so very skilful at making.
That will do for a preliminarysketch. If you follow these pages,

you will hear more of him; he is worth it.
VI. THE FIRST GAME CAMP

In the review of "first" impressions with which 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 some tall beautiful falls
plunging several hundred feet into the mysteriousness of a dense

forest on which we looked down. There we had enjoyed some duck,
goose and snipe shooting; 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 stream. Here and there were small

game herds. In the light of later experience we now realize that
these were nothing at all; but at the time the sight of

full-grown wild animals out in plain sight was quite wonderful.
At the close of the day's march we always wandered out with our

rifles to see what we could find. Everything was new to us, and
we had our men to feed. Our shooting gradually 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.
At this point, above the junction of its principal tributary

rivers, it was a stream about sixty or seventy feet wide, flowing
swift between high banks. A few trees marked its course, but

nothing like a jungle. The ford was in swift water just above a
deep still pool suspected of crocodiles. We found the water about

waist deep, stretched a rope across, and forcibly persuaded our
eager boys that one at a time was about what the situation

required. On the other side we made camp on an open flat. Having
marched so far continuously, we resolved to settle down for a

while. The men had been without sufficient meat; and we desired
very much to look over the country closely, and to collect a few

heads as trophies.
Perhaps a word might not come amiss as to the killing of game.

The case is here quite different from the condition of affairs at
home. Here animal life is most extraordinarilyabundant; it

furnishes the main food supply to the traveller; and at present
is probably increasing slightly, certainly holding its own.

Whatever toll the sportsman or traveller take is as nothing
compared to what he might take if he were an unscrupulous game

hog. If his cartridges and his shoulder held out, he could easily
kill a hundred animals a day instead of the few he requires. In

that sense, then, no man slaughters indiscriminately. During the
course of a year he probably shoots from two hundred to two

hundred and fifty beasts, provided he is travelling with an
ordinary sized caravan. This, the experts say, is about the

annual toll of one lion. If the traveller gets his lion, he plays
even with the fauna of the country; if he gets two or more lions,

he has something to his credit. This probably explains why the
game is still so remarkablyabundant near the road and on the

very outskirts of the town.
We were now much in need of a fair quantity of meat, both for

immediate consumption of our safari, and to make biltong or
jerky. Later, in like circumstances, we should have sallied forth

in a businesslike fashion, dropped the requisite number of zebra
and hartebeeste as near camp as possible, and called it a job.

Now, however, being new to the game, we much desired good
trophies in variety. Therefore, we scoured the country far and

wide for desirable heads; and the meat waited upon the
acquisition of the trophy.

This, then, might be called our first Shooting Camp. Heretofore
we had travelled every day. Now the boys settled down to what the

native porter considers the height of bliss: a permanent camp
with plenty to eat. Each morning we were off before daylight,

riding our horses, and followed by the gunbearers, the syces, and
fifteen or twenty porters. The country rose from the river in a

long gentle slope grown with low brush and scattered candlestick
euphorbias. This slope ended in a scattered range of low rocky

buttes. Through any one of the various openings between them, we
rode to find ourselves on the borders of an undulating grass

country of low rounded hills with wide valleys winding between
them. In these valleys and on these hills was the game.

Daylight of the day I would tell about found us just at the edge
of the little buttes. Down one of the slopes the growing half

light revealed two oryx feeding, magnificent big creatures, with
straight rapier horns three feet in length. These were most

exciting and desirable, so off my horse I got and began to sneak
up on them through the low tufts of grass. They fed quite calmly.

I congratulated myself, and slipped nearer. Without even looking
in my direction, they trotted away. Somewhat chagrined, I

returned to my companions, and we rode on.
Then across a mile-wide valley we saw two dark objects in the

tall grass; and almost immediately identified these as
rhinoceroses, the first we had seen. They stood there side by

side, gazing off into space, doing nothing in a busy morning
world. After staring at them through our glasses for some time,

we organized a raid. At the bottom of the valley we left the
horses and porters; lined up, each with his gunbearer at his

elbow; and advanced on the enemy. B. was to have the shot
According to all the books we should have been able, provided we

were downwind and made no noise, to have approached within fifty
or sixty yards undiscovered. However, at a little over a hundred

yards they both turned tail and departed at a swift trot, their
heads held well up and their tails sticking up straight and stiff

in the most ridiculous fashion. No good shooting at them in such
circumstances, so we watched them go, still keeping up their

slashing trot, growing smaller and smaller in the distance until
finally they disappeared over the top of a swell.

We set ourselves methodically to following them. It took us over
an hour of steady plodding before we again came in sight of them.

They were this time nearer the top of a hill, and we saw
instantly that the curve of the slope was such that we could

approach within fifty yards before coming in sight at all.
Therefore, once more we dismounted, lined up in battle array, and

advanced.
Sensations? Distinctly nervous, decidedly alert, and somewhat

self-congratulatory that I was not more scared. No man can
predicate how efficient he is going to be in the presence of

really dangerous game. Only the actual trial will show. This is
not a question of courage at all, but of purely involuntary

reaction of the nerves. Very few men are physical cowards. They
will and do face anything. But a great many men are rendered

inefficient by the way their nervous systems act under stress. It
is not a matter for control by will power in the slightest