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Updated: June 4, 2025
An hour or two later, both gunbearers asleep and one snoring peacefully, I became aware of a large animal feeding at the bait. Although no sound had preceded its coming, I thought it might be a lion, but feared that it was a hyena. I fired at the dark, shifting, black shadow and the roar of the big rifle shattered the silence like a clap of unexpected thunder.
We could make out several of them lying down. One fine old yellow fellow stretched himself comfortably atop a flat rock, in the position of a bronze lion on a pedestal. We waited twenty minutes to make sure they were not going to move. Then, leaving all our men except the gunbearers under the tree, we slipped back until out of sight, and began to execute our flank movement.
He stood five feet six inches high at the shoulder; was nine feet eight inches long, without the tail; and would weigh twenty-five hundred pounds. The men were delighted with this acquisition. I now had fourteen porters, the three gunbearers, the cook, and the two boys.
We turned in. As I reached over to extinguish the lantern I issued my last command for the day. "Watcha kalele, Saa-sita," I told the askari; at once he lifted up his voice to repeat my words. "Watcha kalele!" Immediately from the Responsible all over camp the word came back-from gunbearers, from M'ganga, from tent boys-"kalele! kalele! kalele!"
We started forth again, with a single tent, our guides and gunbearers, a cook and a couple of tent boys and twenty porters. This time we politely ignored all elephant trails in the dense bush and pushed on through the forest. Here it was infinitely better, for one could see some distance in all directions.
I acknowledge the gunbearers are sometimes very skilful at this, but I do deny that there is no loss of time. The instant of distracted attention while receiving a weapon, the necessity of recollecting the nervous correlations after the transfer, very often mark just the difference between a sure instinctive snapshot and a lost opportunity.
F. and I took off our boots; but our gunbearers expressed such horror at the mere thought of our plunging into the mud, that we dutifully climbed them pick-a-back and were carried. The hard shell beach was a hundred feet away, occupying a little recess where the persistent tough mangroves drew back. From it led a narrow path through the thicket.
The other and larger one had one good tusk and one that was broken off. After about twenty minutes we left our horses and with only our gunbearers moved across toward them, thinking that there must be others that we had not yet seen. The wind was bad, sometimes sweeping up in our direction through the depression between the two slopes and a moment later coming from another direction.
It was very exciting work, but the men never faltered. Of course I went first, in case one of the beasts had the toothache or otherwise did not play up to our calculations on good nature. One or the other of the gunbearers was always just behind me. Only once was any comment made. Kongoni looked very closely into my face. "There are very many lions," he remarked doubtfully.
These beautifully clean, trim, dignified people are always a pleasant feature in the varied picture. The Somalis are a clan by themselves. A few of them condescend to domestic service, but the most prefer the free life of traders, horse dealers, gunbearers, camel drivers, labour go-betweens, and similar guerrilla occupations.
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