I wish I could plunge you at once into the excitements of big game in
Africa, but I cannot truthfully do so. To be sure, we went hunting that
afternoon, up over the low cliffs, and we saw several of a very lively
little animal known as the Chandler's reedbuck. This was not supposed to
be a game country, and that was all we did see. At these we shot several
times-disgracefully. In fact, for several days we could not shoot
at all, at any range, nor at anything. It was very sad, and very
aggravating. Afterward we found that this is an invariable experience to
the newcomer. The light is new, the air is different, the sizes of the
game are deceiving. Nobody can at first hit anything. At the end of five
days we suddenly began to shoot our normal gait. Why, I do not know.
But in this afternoon tramp around the low cliffs after the elusive
reedbuck, I for the first time became acquainted with a man who
developed into a real friend.
His name is Memba Sasa. Memba Sasa are two Swahili words meaning “now a
crocodile.” Subsequently, after I had learned to talk Swahili, I tried
to find out what he was formerly, before he was a crocodile, but did not
succeed.
He was of the tribe of the Monumwezi, of medium height, compactly
and sturdily built, carried himself very erect, and moved with a
concentrated and vigorous purposefulness. His countenance might be
described as pleasing but not handsome, of a dark chocolate brown, with
the broad nose of the negro, but with a firm mouth, high cheekbones, and
a frowning intentness of brow that was very fine. When you talked to
him he looked you straight in the eye. His own eyes were shaded by
long, soft, curling lashes behind which they looked steadily and
gravely-sometimes fiercely-on the world. He rarely smiled-never merely
in understanding or for politeness' sake-and never laughed unless there
was something really amusing. Then he chuckled from deep in his chest,
the most contagious laughter you can imagine. Often we, at the other end
of the camp, have laughed in sympathy, just at the sound of that deep
and hearty ho! ho! ho! of Memba Sasa. Even at something genuinely
amusing he never laughed much, nor without a very definite restraint. In
fact, about him was no slackness, no sprawling abandon of the native
in relaxation; but always a taut efficiency and a never-failing
self-respect.
Naturally, behind such a fixed moral fibre must always be some moral
idea. When a man lives up to a real, not a pompous, dignity some ideal
must inform it. Memba Sasa's ideal was that of the Hunter.
He was a gunbearer; and he considered that a good gunbearer stood quite
a few notches above any other human being, save always the white man,
of course. And even among the latter Memba Sasa made great differences.
These differences he kept to himself, and treated all with equal
respect. Nevertheless, they existed, and Memba Sasa very well knew that
fact. In the white world were two classes of masters: those who hunted
well, and those who were considered by them as their friends and equals.
Why they should be so considered Memba Sasa did not know, but he trusted
the Hunter's judgment. These were the bwanas, or masters. All the rest
were merely mazungos, or, “white men.” To their faces he called them
bwana, but in his heart he considered them not.
Observe, I say those who hunted well. Memba Sasa, in his profession as
gunbearer, had to accompany those who hunted badly. In them he took
no pride; from them he held aloof in spirit; but for them he did his
conscientious best, upheld by the dignity of his profession.
For to Mamba Sasa that profession was the proudest to which a black
man could aspire. He prided himself on mastering its every detail, in
accomplishing its every duty minutely and exactly. The major virtues of
a gunbearer are not to be despised by anybody; for they comprise great
physical courage, endurance, and loyalty: the accomplishments of a
gunbearer are worthy of a man's best faculties, for they include the
ability to see and track game, to take and prepare properly any sort of
a trophy, field taxidermy, butchering game meat, wood and plainscraft,
the knowledge of how properly to care for firearms in all sorts of
circumstances, and a half hundred other like minutiae. Memba Sasa knew
these things, and he performed them with the artist's love for details;
and his keen eyes were always spying for new ways.
At a certain time I shot an egret, and prepared to take the skin. Memba
Sasa asked if he might watch me do it. Two months later, having killed
a really gaudy peacocklike member of the guinea fowl tribe, I handed
it over to him with instructions to take off the breast feathers before
giving it to the cook. In a half hour he brought me the complete skin,
I examined it carefully, and found it to be well done in every respect.
Now in skinning a bird there are a number of delicate and unusual
operations, such as stripping the primary quills from the bone, cutting
the ear cover, and the like. I had explained none of them; and yet Memba
Sasa, unassisted, had grasped their method from a single demonstration
and had remembered them all two months later! C. had a trick in making
the second skin incision of a trophy head that had the effect of giving
a better purchase to the knife. Its exact description would be out of
place here, but it actually consisted merely in inserting the point of
the knife two inches away from the place it is ordinarily inserted. One
day we noticed that Memba Sasa was making his incisions in that manner.
I went to Africa fully determined to care for my own rifle. The modern
high-velocity gun needs rather especial treatment; mere wiping out will
not do. I found that Memba Sasa already knew all about boiling water,
and the necessity for having it really boiling, about subsequent metal
sweating, and all the rest. After watching him at work I concluded,
rightly, that he would do a lot better job than I.
To the new employer Memba Sasa maintained an attitude of strict
professional loyalty. His personal respect was upheld by the necessity
of every man to do his job in the world. Memba Sasa did his. He cleaned
the rifles; he saw that everything was in order for the day's march; he
was at my elbow all ways with more cartridges and the spare rifle; he
trailed and looked conscientiously. In his attitude was the stolidity
of the wooden Indian. No action of mine, no joke on the part of his
companions, no circumstance in the varying fortunes of the field gained
from him the faintest flicker of either approval, disapproval, or
interest. When we returned to camp he deposited my water bottle
and camera, seized the cleaning implements, and departed to his own
campfire. In the field he pointed out game that I did not see, and
waited imperturbably the result of my shot.
As I before stated, the result of that shot for the first five days was
very apt to be nil. This, at the time, puzzled and grieved me a lot.
Occasionally I looked at Memba Sasa to catch some sign of sympathy,
disgust, contempt, or-rarely-triumph at a lucky shot. Nothing. He gently
but firmly took away my rifle, reloaded it, and handed it back; then
waited respectfully for my next move. He knew no English, and I no
Swahili.
But as time went on this attitude changed. I was armed with the new
Springfield rifle, a weapon with 2,700 feet velocity, and with a
marvellously flat trajectory. This commanding advantage, combined with
a very long familiarity with firearms, enabled me to do some fairish
shooting, after the strangeness of these new conditions had been
mastered. Memba Sasa began to take a dawning interest in me as a
possible source of pride. We began to develop between us a means of
communication. I set myself deliberately to learn his language, and
after he had cautiously determined that I really meant it, he took the
greatest pains-always gravely-to teach me. A more human feeling sprang
up between us.
But we had still the final test to undergo-that of danger and the tight
corner.
In close quarters the gunbearer has the hardest job in the world. I have
the most profound respect for his absolute courage. Even to a man
armed and privileged to shoot and defend himself, a charging lion is an
awesome thing, requiring a certain amount of coolness and resolution to
face effectively. Think of the gunbearer at his elbow, depending not
on himself but on the courage and coolness of another. He cannot do one
solitary thing to defend himself. To bolt for the safety of a tree is
to beg the question completely, to brand himself as a shenzi forever;
to fire a gun in any circumstances is to beg the question also, for
the white man must be able to depend absolutely on his second gun in
an emergency. Those things are outside consideration, even, of any
respectable gunbearer. In addition, he must keep cool. He must see
clearly in the thickest excitement; must be ready unobtrusively to pass
up the second gun in the position most convenient for immediate use, to
seize the other and to perform the finicky task of reloading correctly
while some rampageous beast is raising particular thunder a few yards
away. All this in absolute dependence on the ability of his bwana to
deal with the situation. I can confess very truly that once or twice
that little unobtrusive touch of Memba Sasa crouched close to my elbow
steadied me with the thought of how little right I-with a rifle in
my hand-had to be scared. And the best compliment I ever received I
overheard by chance. I had wounded a lion when out by myself, and
had returned to camp for a heavier rifle and for Memba Sasa to do the
trailing. From my tent I overheard the following conversation between
Memba Sasa and the cook:
“The grass is high,” said the cook. “Are you not afraid to go after a
wounded lion with only one white man?”
“My one white man is enough,” replied Memba Sasa.
It is a quality of courage that I must confess would be quite beyond
me-to depend entirely on the other fellow, and not at all on myself.
This courage is always remarkable to me, even in the case of the
gunbearer who knows all about the man whose heels he follows. But
consider that of the gunbearer's first experience with a stranger. The
former has no idea of how the white man will act; whether he will get
nervous, get actually panicky, lose his shooting ability, and generally
mess things up. Nevertheless, he follows his master in, and he stands
by. If the hunter fails, the gunbearer will probably die. To me it is
rather fine: for he does it, not from the personal affection and loyalty
which will carry men far, but from a sheer sense of duty and pride of
caste. The quiet pride of the really good men, like Memba Sasa, is easy
to understand.
And the records are full of stories of the white man who has not made
good: of the coward who bolts, leaving his black man to take the brunt
of it, or who sticks but loses his head. Each new employer must be
very closely and interestedly scrutinized. In the light of subsequent
experience, I can no longer wonder at Memba Sasa's first detached and
impersonal attitude.
As time went on, however, and we grew to know each other better, this
attitude entirely changed. At first the change consisted merely in
dropping the disinterested pose as respects game. For it was a pose.
Memba Sasa was most keenly interested in game whenever it was an object
of pursuit. It did not matter how common the particular species might
be: if we wanted it, Memba Sasa would look upon it with eager ferocity;
and if we did not want it, he paid no attention to it at all. When we
started in the morning, or in the relaxation of our return at night, I
would mention casually a few of the things that might prove acceptable.
“To-morrow we want kongoni for boys' meat, or zebra; and some meat for
masters-Tommy, impala, oribi,” and Memba Sasa knew as well as I did what
we needed to fill out our trophy collection. When he caught sight of one
of these animals his whole countenance changed. The lines of his face
set, his lips drew back from his teeth, his eyes fairly darted fire in
the fixity of their gaze. He was like a fine pointer dog on birds, or
like the splendid savage he was at heart.
“M'palla!” he hissed; and then after a second, in a restrained fierce
voice, “Na-ona? Do you see?”
If I did not see he pointed cautiously. His own eyes never left the
beast. Rarely he stayed put while I made the stalk. More often he glided
like a snake at my heels. If the bullet hit, Memba Sasa always exhaled
a grunt of satisfaction-“hah!”-in which triumph and satisfaction mingled
with a faint derision at the unfortunate beast. In case of a trophy he
squatted anxiously at the animal's head while I took my measurements,
assisting very intelligently with the tape line. When I had finished, he
always looked up at me with wrinkled brow.
“Footie n'gapi?” he inquired. This means literally, “How many feet?”,
footie being his euphemistic invention of a word for the tape. I would
tell him how many “footie” and how many “inchie” the measurement proved
to be. From the depths of his wonderful memory he would dig up the
measurements of another beast of the same sort I had killed months back,
but which he had remembered accurately from a single hearing.
The shooting of a beast he always detailed to his few cronies in camp:
the other gunbearers, and one or two from his own tribe. He always used
the first person plural, “we” did so and so; and took an inordinate
pride in making out his bwana as being an altogether superior person to
any of the other gunbearer's bwanas. Over a miss he always looked
sad; but with a dignified sadness as though we had met with undeserved
misfortune sent by malignant gods. If there were any possible
alleviating explanation, Memba Sasa made the most of it, provided our
fiasco was witnessed. If we were alone in our disgrace, he buried the
incident fathoms deep. He took an inordinate pride in our using the
minimum number of cartridges, and would explain to me in a loud tone
of voice that we had cartridges enough in the belt. When we had not
cartridges enough, he would sneak around after dark to get some more. At
times he would even surreptitiously “lift” a few from B.'s gunbearer!
When in camp, with his “cazi” finished, Memba Sasa did fancy work! The
picture of this powerful half-savage, his fierce brows bent over a tiny
piece of linen, his strong fingers fussing with little stitches, will
always appeal to my sense of the incongruous. Through a piece of linen
he punched holes with a porcupine quill. Then he “buttonhole” stitched
the holes, and embroidered patterns between them with fine white thread.
The result was an openwork pattern heavily encrusted with beautiful fine
embroidery. It was most astounding stuff, such as you would expect from
a French convent, perhaps, but never from an African savage. He did a
circular piece and a long narrow piece. They took him three months to
finish, and then he sewed them together to form a skull cap. Billy,
entranced with the lacelike delicacy of the work, promptly captured it;
whereupon Memba Sasa philosophically started another.
By this time he had identified himself with my fortunes. We had become
a firm whose business it was to carry out the affairs of a single
personality-me. Memba Sasa, among other things, undertook the dignity.
When I walked through a crowd, Memba Sasa zealously kicked everybody out
of my royal path. When I started to issue a command, Memba Sasa finished
it and amplified it and put a snapper on it. When I came into camp,
Memba Sasa saw to it personally that my tent went up promptly and
properly, although that was really not part of his “cazi” at all. And
when somewhere beyond my ken some miserable boy had committed a crime, I
never remained long in ignorance of that fact.
Perhaps I happened to be sitting in my folding chair idly smoking a
pipe and reading a book. Across the open places of the camp would stride
Memba Sasa, very erect, very rigid, moving in short indignant jerks,
his eye flashing fire. Behind him would sneak a very hang-dog boy. Memba
Sasa marched straight up to me, faced right, and drew one side, his
silence sparkling with honest indignation.
“Just look at THAT!” his attitude seemed to say, “Could you believe such
human depravity possible? And against OUR authority?”
He always stood, quite rigid, waiting for me to speak.
“Well, Memba Sasa?” I would inquire, after I had enjoyed the show a
little.
In a few restrained words he put the case before me, always briefly,
always with a scornful dignity. This shenzi has done so-and-so.
We will suppose the case fairly serious. I listened to the man's story,
if necessary called a few witnesses, delivered judgment. All the while
Memba Sasa stood at rigid attention, fairly bristling virtue, like
the good dog standing by at the punishment of the bad dogs. And in his
attitude was a subtle triumph, as one would say: “You see! Fool with my
bwana, will you! Just let anybody try to get funny with US!” Judgment
pronounced-we have supposed the case serious, you remember-Memba Sasa
himself applied the lash. I think he really enjoyed that; but it was a
restrained joy. The whip descended deliberately, without excitement.
The man's devotion in unusual circumstances was beyond praise. Danger
or excitement incite a sort of loyalty in any good man; but humdrum,
disagreeable difficulty is a different matter.
One day we marched over a country of thorn-scrub desert. Since two days
we had been cut loose from water, and had been depending on a small
amount carried in zinc drums. Now our only reasons for faring were a
conical hill, over the horizon, and the knowledge of a river somewhere
beyond. How far beyond, or in what direction, we did not know. We had
thirty men with us, a more or less ragtag lot, picked up anyhow in the
bazaars. They were soft, ill-disciplined and uncertain. For five or six
hours they marched well enough. Then the sun began to get very hot, and
some of them began to straggle. They had, of course, no intention of
deserting, for their only hope of surviving lay in staying with us; but
their loads had become heavy, and they took too many rests. We put a
good man behind, but without much avail. In open country a safari can
be permitted to straggle over miles, for always it can keep in touch by
sight; but in this thorn-scrub desert, that looks all alike, a man fifty
yards out of sight is fifty yards lost. We would march fifteen or twenty
minutes, then sit down to wait until the rearmost men had straggled in,
perhaps a half hour later. And we did not dare move on until the tale of
our thirty was complete. At this rate progress was very slow, and as the
fierce equatorial sun increased in strength, became always slower still.
The situation became alarming. We were quite out of water, and we had no
idea where water was to be found. To complicate matters, the thornbrush
thickened to a jungle.
My single companion and I consulted. It was agreed that I was to push on
as rapidly as possible to locate the water, while he was to try to hold
the caravan together. Accordingly, Memba Sasa and I marched ahead. We
tried to leave a trail to follow; and we hoped fervently that our guess
as to the stream's course would prove to be a good one. At the end
of two hours and a half we found the water-a beautiful jungle-shaded
stream-and filled ourselves up therewith. Our duty was accomplished, for
we had left a trail to be followed. Nevertheless, I felt I should like
to take back our full canteens to relieve the worst cases. Memba Sasa
would not hear of it, and even while I was talking to him seized the
canteens and disappeared.
At the end of two hours more camp was made, after a fashion; but still
four men had failed to come in. We built a smudge in the hope of guiding
them; and gave them up. If they had followed our trail, they should have
been in long ago; if they had missed that trail, heaven knows where they
were, or where we should go to find them. Dusk was falling, and, to tell
the truth, we were both very much done up by a long day at 115 degrees
in the shade under an equatorial sun. The missing men would climb trees
away from the beasts, and we would organize a search next day. As we
debated these things, to us came Memba Sasa.
“I want to take 'Winchi,'” said he. “Winchi” is his name for my
Winchester 405.
“Why?” we asked.
“If I can take Winchi, I will find the men,” said he.
This was entirely voluntary on his part. He, as well as we, had had a
hard day, and he had made a double journey for part of it. We gave him
Winchi and he departed. Sometime after midnight he returned with the
missing men.
Perhaps a dozen times all told he volunteered for these special
services; once in particular, after a fourteen-hour day, he set off
at nine o'clock at night in a soaking rainstorm, wandered until two
o'clock, and returned unsuccessful, to rouse me and report gravely
that he could not find them. For these services he neither received nor
expected special reward. And catch him doing anything outside his strict
“cazi” except for US.
We were always very ceremonious and dignified in our relations on such
occasions. Memba Sasa would suddenly appear, deposit the rifle in its
place, and stand at attention.
“Well, Memba Sasa?” I would inquire.
“I have found the men; they are in camp.”
Then I would give him his reward. It was either the word “assanti,” or
the two words “assanti sana,” according to the difficulty and importance
of the task accomplished. They mean simply “thank you” and “thank you
very much.”
Once or twice, after a particularly long and difficult month or so, when
Memba Sasa has been almost literally my alter ego, I have called him up
for special praise. “I am very pleased with you, Memba Sasa,” said I.
“You have done your cazi well. You are a good man.”
He accepted this with dignity, without deprecation, and without the
idiocy of spoken gratitude. He agreed perfectly with everything I
said! “Yes” was his only comment. I liked it.
On our ultimate success in a difficult enterprise Memba Sasa set great
store; and his delight in ultimate success was apparently quite apart
from personal considerations. We had been hunting greater kudu for five
weeks before we finally landed one. The greater kudu is, with the bongo,
easily the prize beast in East Africa, and very few are shot. By a piece
of bad luck, for him, I had sent Memba Sasa out in a different direction
to look for signs the afternoon we finally got one. The kill was made
just at dusk. C. and I, with Mavrouki, built a fire and stayed, while
Kongoni went to camp after men. There he broke the news to Memba Sasa
that the great prize had been captured, and he absent. Memba Sasa was
hugely delighted, nor did he in any way show what must have been a great
disappointment to him. After repeating the news triumphantly to every
one in camp, he came out to where we were waiting, arrived quite out of
breath, and grabbed me by the hand in heartiest congratulation.
Memba Sasa went in not at all for personal ornamentation, any more than
he allowed his dignity to be broken by anything resembling emotionalism.
No tattoo marks, no ear ornaments, no rings nor bracelets. He never even
picked up an ostrich feather for his head. On the latter he sometimes
wore an old felt hat; sometimes, more picturesquely, an orange-coloured
fillet. Khaki shirt, khaki “shorts,” blue puttees, besides his knife
and my own accoutrements: that was all. In town he was all white clad, a
long fine linen robe reaching to his feet; and one of the lacelike skull
caps he was so very skilful at making.
That will do for a preliminary sketch. If you follow these pages, you
will hear more of him; he is worth it.