tive "boma," keeps out lions and the sneaking
hyaena at night. Nor are their rifles more than a half protection, for
the '303 makes so clean a hole that it is often madness to attempt to
shoot a lion with it. Once wounded he is far more dangerous a foe. Here
the "tota" earns his pay, for he can hunt the native villages for
"cuckoos," the native fowls, and eggs.

The load of rations must not, save at the last extremity, be broached.

And the roads they travel on: you never saw such things, mere bush
tracks where the pioneers have cut down trees and bushes, and left the
stumps above the level earth. No easy job to steer these great lumbering
machines between these treacherous stumps. From early dawn to late night
you'll meet these leviathans of the road, diving into the bush to force
a new road for themselves when the old track is too deep in mud or dust,
plunging and diving down water-courses or the rocky river-beds, creeping
with great care over the frail bridge that spans a deep ravine. A bridge
made up of tree-trunks laid lengthwise on wooden up-rights. The lion and
the leopard stand beside the road, with paw uplifted, in the glare of
the headlights at night.

Nor is there only danger from flood and fever and the denizens of the
forest. There is ever to be feared the lurking German patrol that trains
its dozen rifles upon the driver, knowing full well that he must sit and
quietly face it out, or the lorry, once out of control, plunges against
a tree and becomes, with both its drivers, the prey of these marauders.
So, while his mate fumbles with the bolt lever of his rifle, the driver
takes a firmer grip of the wheel, gives her more "juice," and plunges
headlong down the road. At Handeni I once had a driver with five bullets
in him; they had not stopped him until he reached safety, and his mate
was able to take over. Nor does this exhaust the risks of his job, for
there is the land mine, buried in the soft dust of the road, or beneath
the crazy bridge. Laid at night by the patrol that harasses our lines of
communication, they are the special danger of the first convoy to come
along the road in the morning. Troops we have not to spare to guard
these long lines of ours, so, in particularly dangerous places, the
driver carries a small guard of soldiers on the top of his freight
behind him. Native patrols, very wise at noticing any derangement of the
surface dust, patrol the highways at dawn to lift these unwelcome
souve