cal courage, endurance, and loyalty: the accomplishments of a
gunbearer are worthy of a man's best faculties, for they include the
ability to see and track game, to take and prepare properly any sort of
a trophy, field taxidermy, butchering game meat, wood and plainscraft,
the knowledge of how properly to care for firearms in all sorts of
circumstances, and a half hundred other like minutiae. Memba Sasa knew
these things, and he performed them with the artist's love for details;
and his keen eyes were always spying for new ways.

At a certain time I shot an egret, and prepared to take the skin. Memba
Sasa asked if he might watch me do it. Two months later, having killed
a really gaudy peacocklike member of the guinea fowl tribe, I handed
it over to him with instructions to take off the breast feathers before
giving it to the cook. In a half hour he brought me the complete skin,
I examined it carefully, and found it to be well done in every respect.
Now in skinning a bird there are a number of delicate and unusual
operations, such as stripping the primary quills from the bone, cutting
the ear cover, and the like. I had explained none of them; and yet Memba
Sasa, unassisted, had grasped their method from a single demonstration
and had remembered them all two months later! C. had a trick in making
the second skin incision of a trophy head that had the effect of giving
a better purchase to the knife. Its exact description would be out of
place here, but it actually consisted merely in inserting the point of
the knife two inches away from the place it is ordinarily inserted. One
day we noticed that Memba Sasa was making his incisions in that manner.
I went to Africa fully determined to care for my own rifle. The modern
high-velocity gun needs rather especial treatment; mere wiping out will
not do. I found that Memba Sasa already knew all about boiling water,
and the necessity for having it really boiling, about subsequent metal
sweating, and all the rest. After watching him at work I concluded,
rightly, that he would do a lot better job than I.

To the new employer Memba Sasa maintained an attitude of strict
professional loyalty. His personal respect was upheld by the necessity
of every man to do his job in the world. Memba Sasa did his. He cleaned
the rifles; he saw that everything was in order for the day's march; he
was at my elbow all ways with more cartridges and the spare rifle; he
trailed and looked conscientiously. I