erously and full tilt. Two or three old-timers with
white whiskers and red faces continue to slaughter thousands and
thousands and thousands of lions from the depths of their easy chairs.

The stone veranda of that hotel is a very interesting place. Here gather
men from all parts of East Africa, from Uganda, and the jungles of the
Upper Congo. At one time or another all the famous hunters drop into its
canvas chairs--Cunninghame, Allan Black, Judd, Outram, Hoey, and the
others; white traders with the natives of distant lands; owners of farms
experimenting bravely on a greater or lesser scale in a land whose
difficulties are just beginning to be understood; great naturalists and
scientists from the governments of the earth, eager to observe and
collect this interesting and teeming fauna; and sportsmen just out and
full of interest, or just returned and modestly important. More
absorbing conversation can be listened to on this veranda than in any
other one place in the world. The gathering is cosmopolitan; it is
representative of the most active of every social, political, and racial
element; it has done things; it contemplates vital problems from the
vantage ground of experience. The talk veers from pole to pole--and
returns always to lions.

Every little while a native--a raw savage--comes along and takes up a
stand just outside the railing. He stands there mute and patient for
five minutes--a half hour--until some one, any one, happens to notice
him.

"N'jo!--come here!" commands this person.

The savage silently proffers a bit of paper on which is written the name
of the one with whom he has business.

"Nenda officie!" indicates the charitable person waving his hand
towards the hotel office.

Then, and not until this permission has been given by some one, dares
the savage cross the threshold to do his errand.

If the messenger happens to be a trained houseboy, however, dressed in
his uniform of khaki or his more picturesque white robe and cap, he is
privileged to work out his own salvation. And behind the hotel are rows
and rows of other boys, each waiting patiently the pleasure of his
especial bwana lounging at ease after strenuous days. At the drawling
shout of "boy!" one of them instantly departs to find out which
particular boy is wanted.

The moment any white man walks to the edge of the veranda a half-dozen
of the rickshaws across the street career madly around the corners of
the fence, bumping, collid