ZEBRAS (EQUUS BOHMI) OUT ON THE OPEN VELT.
C. G. Schillings, phot.
MY MASAI DONKEYS ARRIVING IN CAMP, ESCORTED BY ARMED MEN. BEARERS ADVANCING TO MEET THEM AND TO UNBURDEN THEM OF THEIR LOADS.
This had already been brought home to me in the regions through which I had travelled. You must have had the experience yourself to realise the degree to which civilised man has unlearnt the use of his eyes and ears. Whether it be a question of finding one’s bearings or deciding in which direction to go, or of sizing up the elephant-herds from their tracks, or of distinguishing the tracks of one kind of antelope from those of another, or of detecting some faint trace of blood telling us that some animal we are after has been wounded, or of knowing where and when we shall come to some water, or of discovering a bee’s nest with honey in it—in all such matters the native is as clever as we are stupid. We may make some progress in this kind of knowledge and capability, but we shall always be a bad second to the native-born hunter of the velt.
With such men to act as your guides you get to feel that traversing Nyíka is as safe as mountain-climbing under the guidance of skilled mountaineers. You get to feel that you cannot lose your way or get into difficulties about water. One reflection, however, should never be quite absent from your mind—that at any moment these guides of yours may abandon you. That misfortune has never happened to me, and it is not likely to happen when the natives are properly handled. Moreover, your friendship with them can sometimes be strengthened by the establishment of bonds of brotherhood. A time-honoured practice of this kind, held sacred by the natives, can be of the greatest benefit. I am strongly in favour of the observance of these praiseworthy native customs, and have always been most ready to go through with the ceremonies involved.
I endeavour to win the goodwill of my guides by keeping to the pace they set—an easy matter for me. In every other way also I take pains to fall in with the ways and habits of the Wandorobo, so as to attenuate that feeling of antagonism which my uncivilised friends necessarily harbour towards the European. I owe it to this, perhaps, that they did their utmost to find the elephant-tracks for me.
For hour after hour we continue our march, in and out, over velt and brushwood, coming every few hours to a watering-place, and meeting in the hollow of one valley an exceptionally large herd of oryx antelopes. Under cover of the brushwood, and favoured by the wind, I succeed in getting quite near this herd and thus in studying their movements close at hand.
