The Land Of Footprints By Stewart Edward White








 -  By means of our mutual
accomplishment in that tongue, and through a more efficient sign
language, I got him to - Page 116
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By Means Of Our Mutual Accomplishment In That Tongue, And Through A More Efficient Sign Language, I Got Him To Understand The Plan Of Campaign.

It was very simple.

I squatted down inside the rape, while he went around the other side to scare them up.

The white birds uttered their peculiarly derisive cackle at the old man and flapped over to my side. Then they were certainly an astonished lot of birds. I gave them both barrels and dropped a pair; got two more shots as they swung over me and dropped another pair, and brought down a straggling single as a grand finale. The flock, with shrill, derogatory remarks, flew in an airline straight away. They never deviated, as far as I could follow them with the eye. Even after they had apparently disappeared, I could catch an occasional flash of white in the sun.

Now the old gentleman came whooping around with long, undignified bounds to fall on his face and seize my foot in an excess of gratitude. He rose and capered about, he rushed out and gathered in the slain one by one and laid them in a pile at my feet. Then he danced a jig-step around them and reviled them, and fell on his face once more, repeating the word "Bwana! bwana! bwana!" over and over-"Master! master! master!" We returned to camp together, the old gentleman carrying the birds, and capering about like a small boy, pouring forth a flood of his sort of Swahili, of which I could understand only a word here and there. Memba Sasa, very dignified and scornful of such performances, met us halfway and took my gun. He seemed to be able to understand the old fellow's brand of Swahili, and said it over again in a brand I could understand. From it I gathered that I was called a marvellously great sultan, a protector of the poor, and other Arabian Nights titles.

The birds proved to be white egrets. Now at home I am strongly against the killing of these creatures, and have so expressed myself on many occasions. But, looking from the beautiful white plumage of these villainous mauraders, to the wrinkled countenance of the grateful weary old savage, I could not fan a spark of regret. And from the straight line of their retreating flight I like to think that the rest of the flock never came back, but took their toll from the wider fields of the plateau above.

Next day we reentered the game-haunted wilderness, nor did we see any more native villages until many weeks later we came into the country of the Wakamba.

XIX. THE TANA RIVER

Our first sight of the Tana River was from the top of a bluff. It flowed below us a hundred feet, bending at a sharp elbow against the cliff on which we stood. Out of the jungle it crept sluggishly and into the jungle it crept again, brown, slow, viscid, suggestive of the fevers and the lurking beasts by which, indeed, it was haunted.

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