on this six feet something of most superb and insolent pride
wilted down to a small boy with his elbow before his face.

"Don't hit, bwana! Don't hit!" he begged.

The whole thing was so comical, especially with Memba Sasa standing
by virtuous and scornful, that I had hard work to keep from laughing.
Fortunately the rhinoceros behaved himself.

The proud moment of Fundi's life was when safari entered Nairobi at the
end of the first expedition. He had gone forth with a load on his head,
rags on his back, and his only glory was the self-assumed one of the
name he had taken-Fundi, the Expert. He returned carrying a rifle,
rigged from top to toe in new garments and fancy accoutrements, followed
by a toro, or small boy, he had bought from some of the savage tribes to
carry his blanket and cooking pot for him. To the friends who darted out
to the line of march, he was gracious, but he held his head high, and
had no time for mere persiflage.

I did not take Fundi on my second expedition, for I had no real use for
a second gunbearer. Several times subsequently I saw him on the streets
of Nairobi. Always he came up to greet me, and ask solicitously if I
would not give him a job. This I was unable to do. When we paid off, I
had made an addition to his porter's wages, and had written him a chit.
This said that the boy had the makings of a gunbearer with further
training. It would have been unfair to possible white employers to have
said more. Fundi was, when I left the country, precisely in the position
of any young man who tries to rise in the world. He would not again take
a load as porter, and he was not yet skilled enough or known enough to
pick up more than stray jobs as gunbearer. Before him was struggle and
hard times, with a certainty of a highly considered profession if he won
through. Behind him was steady work without outlets for ambition. It
was distinctly up to him to prove whether he had done well to reach for
ambition, or whether he would have done better in contentment with his
old lot. And that is in essence a good deal like our own world isn't it?

XVII. NATIVES

Up to this time, save for a few Masai at the very beginning of our trip,
we had seen no natives at all. Only lately, the night of the lion dance,
one of the Wanderobo-the forest hunters-had drifted in to tell us of
buffalo and to get some meat. He was a simple soul, small and capable,
of a beautiful red-brown, with his hair done up in a tigh