HOW MY CAPTIVE YOUNG “RHINO” WAS CARRIED TO CAMP.
CARRYING A DEAD LEOPARD, TO AN ACCOMPANIMENT OF IMPROVISED SONGS.
“FATIMA” (AS I CHRISTENED MY “RHINO”) AND HER TWO COMPANIONS ON THEIR WAY TO THE COAST.
A YOUNG HYENA, WHICH I HAD EXTRACTED FROM ITS LAIR, RESISTED AT FIRST ALL EFFORTS AT TAMING IT.
But we had our anxious moments. Death levied its toll among my people, and the continual rumours of uprisings and attacks from outside gave plenty to talk about during the whole day, and often far on into the night over the camp-fire. When one of these charming African moonlit nights had set in over my homestead, when the noise of the bearers with their chatter and clatter had ceased, and my work, too, was done, then I used to sit awhile in front of the flickering flames and think. Or I would wander from fire to fire to exchange a few words with my watchmen, to learn their news and their wishes and to ask much that I wanted to know. This is the hour when men are most communicative, and unless there be urgent need of sleep the conversation may continue far into the night.
There is something strangely beautiful about those nights in the wilderness. My thoughts go back to an encampment I once made at the foot of the volcanic mountain of Gelei, close to a picturesque rocky gorge, in the depths of which was a small stream—a mere trickle during the hot weather. Its source lay in the midst of an extensive acacia wood, which tailed off on one side into the bare, open “boga,” while on the other it became merged in a dense thicket of euphorbia trees, creepers, and elelescho bushes, impenetrable to men but affording a refuge to animals, even to elephants. On the day before I had noted the fact that Masai warriors had recently encamped in the neighbourhood, with cattle which they had got hold of on a marauding expedition (and some of which they had here slaughtered), and that with their booty they had betaken themselves over the English frontier. It was quite on the cards that roaming young Masai warriors would suddenly turn up while I was there. It was several days’ journey to the nearest inhabited region. For weeks together one would see no human soul save for a nomadic hunter every now and again.