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Updated: May 23, 2025
In making up a safari one tries to mix in four or five tribes. This prevents concerted action in case of trouble, for no one tribe will help another. They vary both in tribal and individual characteristics, of course. For example, the Kikuyus are docile but mediocre porters; the Kavirondos strong carriers but turbulent and difficult to handle.
Our goods and safari stores we could then ship out to them by train. Accordingly we rode on bicycles out to the Swahili village. This is, as I have said, composed of large "beehive" houses thatched conically with straw.
Instantly he was surrounded, and a volley of questions hurled at him, as he was pulled from his horse and led toward the presence of the commander. Falling back upon his European nationality, Werper assured Abdul Mourak that he was a Frenchman, hunting in Africa, and that he had been attacked by strangers, his safari killed or scattered, and himself escaping only by a miracle.
"Your white man is known to me," said he. Some one remarked appropriately. "He is a prisoner in my camp." "In the camp of your white man." "In my camp. I myself have taken him prisoner," insisted Simba. "You are telling lies," said the headman of the safari. Simba took this calmly. In Africa to call a man a liar is no insult. "It is the truth," said he.
These generally disappear with wonderful rapidity, and when no more fun can be bought, they join another caravan and begin a new safari to the Great Lakes, or even beyond.
The distance was long, and we had not made half of it before thunder clouds began to gather. They came up thick and black behind the escarpment, and rapidly spread over the entire heavens. We found the wagon shortly, still mending its dusselboom, or whatever the thing was. Leaving instructions for it to proceed to a certain point on the Kedong River, we started back for our safari. It rained.
Our luck was not over, however. At the end of six hours we picked our camp in a pretty grove by the swift-running stream. There we sat down to await the safari. The tree-tops were full of both the brown and blue monkeys, baboons barked at us from a distance, the air was musical with many sweet birds. Big thunder-clouds were gathering around the horizon. The safari came in.
These two had been together many years, and explanations were not necessary between them. He, as well as Simba, had noticed the gradual convergence of the game trails, the presence of small grass birds that flushed under their feet, the sing-sing buck behind the aloes, the increasing numbers of game animals that stared or fled at the sight and sound of the safari. Nothing more was said.
Besides, if he lasted that long, he might fill his nostrils once more with the smell of Africa, see the little fires of the safari flickering against the green cane brakes, hear the songs of the march and the crooning of the camp and the voices of the jungle under the crowded stars.
He did not get back until nine o'clock, when he suddenly appeared in the doorway to lean the gun in the corner, and to announce, "Hapana safari." We stretched ourselves on a bench and a table the floor was impossible and took what sleep we could. In the small hours the train thundered through, the train we had hoped to catch! See Patterson's "The Man-eaters of Tsavo."
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