, turn about,
keep the flames bright against the fiercer creatures.

After a time we grew sleepy. I called Saa-sita and entrusted to him my
watch. On the crystal of this I had pasted a small piece of surgeon's
plaster. When the hour hand reached the surgeon's plaster, he must wake
us up. Saa-sita was a very conscientious and careful man. One day I took
some time hitching my pedometer properly to his belt: I could not wear
it effectively myself because I was on horseback. At the end of the
ten-hour march it registered a mile and a fraction. Saa-sita explained
that he wished to take especial care of it, so he had wrapped it in a
cloth and carried it all day in his hand!

We turned in. As I reached over to extinguish the lantern I issued my
last command for the day.

"Watcha kalele, Saa-sita," I told the askari; at once he lifted up
his voice to repeat my words. "Watcha kalele!" Immediately from the
Responsible all over camp the word came back-from gunbearers, from
M'ganga, from tent boys-"kalele! kalele! kalele!"

Thus commanded, the boisterous fun, the croon of intimate talk, the
gently rising and falling tide of melody fell to complete silence. Only
remained the crackling of the fire and the innumerable voices of the
tropical night.

VIII. THE RIVER JUNGLE

We camped along this river for several weeks, poking indefinitely and
happily around the country in all directions to see what we could see.
Generally we went together, for neither B. nor myself had been tried out
as yet on dangerous game-those easy rhinos hardly counted-and I think we
both preferred to feel that we had backing until we knew what our nerves
were going to do with us. Nevertheless, occasionally, I would take Memba
Sasa and go out for a little purposeless stroll a few miles up or down
river. Sometimes we skirted the jungle, sometimes we held as near as
possible to the river's bank, sometimes we cut loose and rambled through
the dry, crackling scrub over the low volcanic hills of the arid country
outside.

Nothing can equal the intense interest of the most ordinary walk in
Africa. It is the only country I know of where a man is thoroughly and
continuously alive. Often when riding horseback with the dogs in my
California home I have watched them in envy of the keen, alert interest
they took in every stone, stick, and bush, in every sight, sound, and
smell. With equal frequency I have expressed that envy, but as something
unattainable to a