he confusion steadied to a kind of
rhythm, and into the circle of the fire came the group of Monumwezis.
Again they were gathered together in a compact little mass; but now they
were bent nearly double, and were stripped to the red blankets about
their waists. Before them writhed Sulimani, close to earth, darting
irregularly now to right, now to left, wriggling, spreading his arms
abroad. He was repeating over and over two phrases; or rather the same
phrase in two such different intonations that they seemed to convey
quite separate meanings.

"Ka soompeele?" he cried with a strongly appealing interrogation.

"Ka soompeele!" he repeated with the downward inflection of decided
affirmation.

And the bent men, their dark bodies gleaming in the firelight, stamping
in rhythm every third step, chorused in a deep rumbling bass:

"Goom zoop! goom zoop!"

Thus they advanced; circled between us and the fire, and withdrew to the
half darkness, where tirelessly they continued the same reiterations.

Hardly had they withdrawn when another group danced forward in their
places. These were the Kikuyus. They had discarded completely their
safari clothes, and now came forth dressed out in skins, in strips of
white cloth, with feathers, shells and various ornaments. They carried
white wands to represent spears, and they sang their tribal lion song.
A soloist delivered the main argument in a high wavering minor and was
followed by a deep rumbling emphatic chorus of repetition, strongly
accented so that the sheer rhythm of it was most pronounced:

"An-gee a Ka ga An-gee a Ka ga An-gee a Ka ga Ki ya Ka ga Ka ga an gee
ya!"

Solemnly and loftily, their eyes fixed straight before them they made
the circle of the fire, passed before our chairs, and withdrew to the
half light. There, a few paces from the stamping, crouching Monumwezis,
they continued their performance.

The next to appear were the Wakambas. These were more histrionic. They
too were unrecognizable as our porters, for they too had for the lion
discarded their work-a-day garments in favour of savage. They produced a
pantomime of the day's doings, very realistic indeed, ending with a half
dozen of dark swaying bodies swinging and shuddering in the long grass
as lions, while the "horses" wove in and out among the crouching forms,
all done to the beat of rhythm. Past us swept the hunt, and in its turn
melted into the half light.

The Kavirondos next appeared, the most fanta