and he is not a real gunbearer. He is half porter and half
gunbearer."

"What punishment shall he have?"
"Kiboko," said they.

"Thank you. Bass!"
They went, leaving Fundi. We surveyed him, quietly.

"You a gunbearer!" said we at last. "Memba Sasa says you are half
gunbearer. He was wrong. You are all porter; and you know no more

than they do. It is in our mind to put you back to carrying a
load. If you do not wish to taste the kiboko, you can take a load

to-morrow."
"The kiboko, bwana," pleaded Fundi, very abashed and humble.

"Furthermore," we added crushingly, "you did not even hit the
rhinoceros!"

So with all ceremony he got the kiboko. The incident did him a
lot of good, and toned down his exuberance somewhat. Nevertheless

he still required a good deal of training, just as does a
promising bird dog in its first season. Generally his faults were

of over-eagerness. Indeed, once he got me thoroughly angry in
face of another rhinoceros by dancing just out of reach with the

heavy rifle, instead of sticking close to me where I could get at
him. I temporarily forgot the rhino, and advanced on Fundi with

the full intention of knocking his fool head off. Whereupon this
six feet something of most superb and insolent pride wilted down

to a small boy with his elbow before his face.
"Don't hit, bwana! Don't hit!" he begged.

The whole thing was so comical, especially with Memba Sasa
standing by virtuous and scornful, that I had hard work to keep

from laughing. Fortunately the rhinoceros behaved himself.
The proud moment of Fundi's life was when safari entered Nairobi

at the end of the first expedition. He had gone forth with a load
on his head, rags on his back, and his only glory was the

self-assumed one of the name he had taken-Fundi, the Expert. He
returned carrying a rifle, rigged from top to toe in new garments

and fancy accoutrements, followed by a toro, or small boy, he had
bought from some of the savage tribes to carry his blanket and

cooking pot for him. To the friends who darted out to the line of
march, he was gracious, but he held his head high, and had no

time for mere persiflage.
I did not take Fundi on my second expedition, for I had no real

use for a second gunbearer. Several times subsequently I saw him
on the streets of Nairobi. Always he came up to greet me, and ask

solicitously if I would not give him a job. This I was unable to
do. When we paid off, I had made an addition to his porter's

wages, and had written him a chit. This said that the boy had the
makings of a gunbearer with further training. It would have been

unfair to possible white employers to have said more. Fundi was,
when I left the country, precisely in the position of any young

man who tries to rise in the world. He would not again take a
load as porter, and he was not yet skilled enough or known enough

to pick up more than stray jobs as gunbearer. Before him was
struggle and hard times, with a certainty of a highly considered

profession if he won through. Behind him was steady work without
outlets for ambition. It was distinctly up to him to prove

whether he had done well to reach for ambition, or whether he
would have done better in contentment with his old lot. And that

is in essence a good deal like our own world isn't it?
XVII. NATIVES

Up to this time, save for a few Masai at the very beginning of
our trip, we had seen no natives at all. Only lately, the night

of the lion dance, one of the Wanderobo-the forest hunters-had
drifted in to tell us of buffalo and to get some meat. He was a

simple soul, small and capable, of a beautiful red-brown, with
his hair done up in a tight, short queue. He wore three skewers

about six inches long thrust through each of his ears, three
strings of blue beads on his neck, a bracelet tight around his

upper arm, a bangle around his ankle, a pair of rawhide sandals,
and about a half yard of cotton cloth which he hung from one

shoulder. As weapons he carried a round-headed, heavy club, or
runga, and a long-bladed spear. He led us to buffalo, accepted a

thirty-three cent blanket, and made fire with two sticks in about
thirty seconds. The only other evidences of human life we had

come across were a few beehives suspended in the trees. These
were logs, bored hollow and stopped at either end. Some of them

were very quaintly carved. They hung in the trees like strange
fruits.

Now, however, after leaving the Isiola, we were to quit the game
country and for days travel among the swarming millions of the

jungle.
A few preliminary and entirely random observations may be

permitted me by way of clearing the ground for a conception of
these people. These observations do not pretend to be

ethnological, nor even common logical.
The first thing for an American to realize is that our own negro

population came mainly from the West Coast, and differed utterly
from these peoples of the highlands in the East. Therefore one

must first of all get rid of the mental image of our own negro
"dressed up" in savage garb. Many of these tribes are not negro

at all-the Somalis, the Nandi, and the Masai, for example-while
others belong to the negroid and Nilotic races. Their colour is

general cast more on the red-bronze than the black, though the
Kavirondos and some others are black enough. The texture of their

skin is very satiny and wonderful. This perfection is probably
due to the constant anointing of the body with oils of various

sorts. As a usual thing they are a fine lot physically. The
southern Masai will average between six and seven feet in height,

and are almost invariably well built. Of most tribes the physical
development is remarkably strong and graceful; and a great many

of the women will display a rounded, firm, high-breasted physique
in marked contrast to the blacks of the lowlands. Of the

different tribes possibly the Kikuyus are apt to count the most
weakly and spindly examples: though some of these people, perhaps

a majority, are well made.
Furthermore, the native differentiates himself still further in

impression from our negro in his carriage and the mental attitude
that lies behind it. Our people are trying to pattern themselves

on white men, and succeed in giving a more or less shambling
imitation thereof. The native has standards, ideas, and ideals

that perfectly satisfy him, and that antedated the white man's
coming by thousands of years. The consciousness of this reflects

itself in his outwardbearing. He does not shuffle; he is not
either obsequious or impudent. Even when he acknowledges the

white man's divinity and pays it appropriate respect, he does not
lose the poise of his own well-worked-out attitude toward life

and toward himself.
We are fond of calling these people primitive. In the world's

standard of measurement they are primitive, very primitive
indeed. But ordinarily by that term, we mean also undeveloped,

embryonic. In that sense we are wrong. Instead of being at the
very dawn of human development, these people are at the end-as

far as they themselves are concerned. The original racialimpulse
that started them down the years toward development has fulfilled

its duty and spent its force. They have worked out all their
problems, established all their customs, arranged the world and

its phenomena in a philosophy to their complete satisfaction.
They have lived, ethnologists tell us, for thousands, perhaps

hundreds of thousands of years, just as we find them to-day. From
our standpoint that is in a hopelessintellectual darkness, for

they know absolutely nothing of the most elementary subjects of
knowledge. From their standpoint, however, they have reached the

highest DESIRABLE pinnacle of human development. Nothing remains
to be changed. Their customs, religions, and duties have been

worked out and immutably established long ago; and nobody dreams
of questioning either their wisdom or their imperative necessity.

They are the conservatives of the world.
Nor must we conclude-looking at them with the eyes of our own

civilization-that the savage is, from his standpoint, lazy and
idle. His life is laid out more rigidly than ours will be for a