n his attitude was the stolidity
of the wooden Indian. No action of mine, no joke on the part of his
companions, no circumstance in the varying fortunes of the field gained
from him the faintest flicker of either approval, disapproval, or
interest. When we returned to camp he deposited my water bottle
and camera, seized the cleaning implements, and departed to his own
campfire. In the field he pointed out game that I did not see, and
waited imperturbably the result of my shot.

As I before stated, the result of that shot for the first five days was
very apt to be nil. This, at the time, puzzled and grieved me a lot.
Occasionally I looked at Memba Sasa to catch some sign of sympathy,
disgust, contempt, or-rarely-triumph at a lucky shot. Nothing. He gently
but firmly took away my rifle, reloaded it, and handed it back; then
waited respectfully for my next move. He knew no English, and I no
Swahili.

But as time went on this attitude changed. I was armed with the new
Springfield rifle, a weapon with 2,700 feet velocity, and with a
marvellously flat trajectory. This commanding advantage, combined with
a very long familiarity with firearms, enabled me to do some fairish
shooting, after the strangeness of these new conditions had been
mastered. Memba Sasa began to take a dawning interest in me as a
possible source of pride. We began to develop between us a means of
communication. I set myself deliberately to learn his language, and
after he had cautiously determined that I really meant it, he took the
greatest pains-always gravely-to teach me. A more human feeling sprang
up between us.

But we had still the final test to undergo-that of danger and the tight
corner.

In close quarters the gunbearer has the hardest job in the world. I have
the most profound respect for his absolute courage. Even to a man
armed and privileged to shoot and defend himself, a charging lion is an
awesome thing, requiring a certain amount of coolness and resolution to
face effectively. Think of the gunbearer at his elbow, depending not
on himself but on the courage and coolness of another. He cannot do one
solitary thing to defend himself. To bolt for the safety of a tree is
to beg the question completely, to brand himself as a shenzi forever;
to fire a gun in any circumstances is to beg the question also, for
the white man must be able to depend absolutely on his second gun in
an emergency. Those things are outside consideration, even, of any