In Africa: Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country

by John T. McCutcheon

The Boro Boedoer Ruins

There were a few busy days in Nairobi. The horses were sold, the porters were paid off, the trophies were prepared for shipment, and our camp outfits and guns were either sold or packed for their journey homeward. There were affectionate and rather tearful partings from good friends, then a quick railway trip to the coast and a day or two of waiting in Mombasa. The hunting was over. Now it was a mere matter of getting home in ninety days, and for variety's sake we elected to go home through India, Java, China, and Japan. I was curious to note the changes that those countries had undergone since I had last seen them years before.

We had some mild adventures. The first occurred in Mombasa, and concerns the strange conduct of two little white dogs that flashed in and out of our lives.

One day when I returned to my room in the hotel at Mombasa I was surprised to find that two small dogs had established themselves therein. The room boy knew nothing about them; the people around the hotel did not remember having ever seen them before. No clue to their owner was obtainable, and we regarded their advent as something of a mild kind of miracle. They played about the room as if they had long been there. When we went out they were at our heels and in the course of our wanderings through the old streets of the town the two dogs were always close at hand, or, rather, close at feet. When I worked in the room at the hotel they lay on the floor or played near my table and made no effort to rush away to the many temptations of the warm sunshine outside. I became much attached to them. Such steadfast devotion from strange dogs is always flattering.

Then our ship, the Umzumbi, South Africa to Bombay, came into the harbor and anchored a quarter of a mile out from the custom-house dock. We decided to go out and visit her and accordingly shut the door to prevent the two little dogs from joining us. Before we reached the dock they were with us, however, having escaped some way or other. And when we got into the rowboat to go out they looked appealingly after us from the dripping steps of the boat landing. We were sorry, but really we couldn't take them to the ship.

The Two Dogs of Mombasa

Suddenly there was a splash, and one of the little dogs was bravely swimming after us. He wasn't built for swimming, but he was making a gallant effort. We stopped and picked him up, a drippy but grateful little creature. Then we had to row back to get the other one. By much strategy we succeeded in getting on board the Umzumbi without taking them with us, but as we were not sailing until the afternoon we stayed on board only long enough to see that our state-room arrangements were satisfactory and to meet the chief steward.

On our way back through the town the dogs got lost from us, but when we reached the room at the hotel they were comfortably installed in the square of sunshine that streamed through the window. They refused to break home ties. Several more times that day we executed elaborate manœuvers to lose them without the painful formality of saying good-by. But all in vain. We tried to give them away and finally succeeded in persuading one woman from up Uganda way that they would be useful to her.