might as well settle down for better conditions, so Mrs. Akeley was
lifted out and we waited impatiently for the wind to die down.

At last it died down, all was hurriedly prepared for the ascension, and
Mrs. Akeley took her place again in the basket. In an instant the
balloon shot up a couple of hundred feet and was held there for a
moment. The wind once more sprang up and the balloon was drawn down amid
the cheers of the crowd. She had been the first woman to make an
ascension in British East Africa, if not in all of Africa.

We then mounted our mules and rode out on the open plains. Several hours
before, our entire camp had moved and we were to join them at a
prearranged spot out on the Athi Plains. All our preliminary worries
were over and at last we were actually started. At six o'clock, far
across the country we saw the gleaming lights of our camp-fires and the
green tents that were to be our homes for many weeks to come. Enormous
herds of hartebeest and wildebeest were on each side, and countless
zebras. That night two of us heard the first bark of the zebra, and we
thought it must be the bark of distant dogs. It was one of our first
surprises to learn that zebras bark instead of neigh.

CHAPTER V

INTO THE HEART OF THE BIG GAME COUNTRY WITH A RETINUE OF MORE THAN ONE
HUNDRED NATIVES. A SAFARI AND WHAT IT IS

When I first expressed my intention of going to East Africa to shoot big
game some of my friends remarked, in surprise: "Why, I didn't know that
you were so bloodthirsty!" They seemed to think that the primary object
of such an expedition was to slay animals, none of which had done
anything to me, and that to wish to embark in any such project was an
evidence of bloodthirstiness. I tried to explain that I had no
particular grudge against any of the African fauna, and that the thing I
chiefly desired to do was to get out in the open, far from the picture
post-card, and enjoy experiences which could not help being wonderful
and strange and perhaps exciting.

The shooting of animals merely for the sake of killing them is, of
course, not an elevating sport, but the by-products of big game hunting
in Africa are among the most delightful and inspiring of all
experiences. For weeks or months you live a nomadic tent life amid
surroundings so different from what you are accustomed to that one is
both mentally and physically rejuvenated. You are among strange and
savage people, in strange and savage la