s between a
cantaloupe and a mango. Then we have oatmeal with evaporated cream and
sugar; then we have choice cuts from some animal that was killed the day
before--usually the liver or the tenderloin. Then we have eggs and
finish up on jam or marmalade and honey. We have coffee for breakfast
and tea for the other meals.

While we are eating the tent boys have packed our tin trunks, our
folding tent table, our cots and our pillows, cork mattresses and
blankets. The gunbearer gets our two favorite rifles and cameras,
field-glasses and water bottles. Then down comes the double-roofed green
tents, all is wrapped into closely-packed bags, and before we are
through with breakfast all the tented village has disappeared and only
the mess tent and the two little outlying canvas shelters remain. It is
a scene of great activity. Porters are busily making up their packs and
the head-man with the askaris are busy directing them. In a half-hour
all that remains is a scattered assortment of bundles, all neatly bound
up in stout cords.

One man may carry a tent-bag and poles, another a tin uniform case with
a shot-gun strapped on top; another may have a bedding roll and a chair
or table, and so on until the whole outfit is reduced to eighty compact
bundles which include the food for the porters, the ant-proof food boxes
with our own food, and the horns and skins of our trophies. The work of
breaking camp is reduced to a science.

Our gunbearers are waiting and the saises with the mules are in
readiness. So we start off, usually walking the first hour or two, with
gunbearers and saises and mules trailing along behind. Soon afterward we
look back to see the long procession of porters following along in
single file. Our tent boys carry our third rifle, and behind them all
comes the head-man, ready to spur on any lagging porters.

[Drawing: _Our Safari on the March_]

The early morning hours are bright and cool, but along about nine
o'clock the equatorial sun begins to beat down upon our heavy sun
helmets and our red-lined and padded spine protectors. But it is seldom
hot for long. A cloud passes across the sun and instantly everything is
cooled. A wave of wind sweeps across the hill and cools the moist brow
like a camphor compress. An instant later the sun is out again and the
land lies swimming in the shimmer of heat waves. Distant hills swim on
miragic lakes, and if we are in plains country the mirages appear upon
all sides.

We