Kikuyu savages. One of these worked the brake crank in the rear while
the other preceded the lead cattle. Brown exercised general supervision,
a long-lashed whip and Boer-Dutch expletives and admonitions.

In transport riding, as this game is called, there is required a great
amount of especial skill though not necessarily a high degree of
intelligence. Along the flats all goes well enough, but once in the
unbelievable rough country of a hill trek the situation alters. A man
must know cattle and their symptoms. It is no light feat to wake up
eighteen sluggish bovine minds to the necessity for effort, and then to
throw so much dynamic energy into the situation that the whole eighteen
will begin to pull at once. That is the secret, unanimity; an ox is the
most easily discouraged working animal on earth. If the first three
couples begin to haul before the others have aroused to their effort,
they will not succeed in budging the wagon an inch, but after a moment's
struggle will give up completely. By that time the leaders respond to
the command and throw themselves forward in the yoke. In vain. They
cannot pull the wagon and their wheel comrades too. Therefore they give
up. By this time, perhaps, the lash has aroused the first lot to another
effort. And so they go, pulling and hauling against each other, getting
nowhere, until the end is an exhausted team, a driver half insane, and a
great necessity for unloading.

A good driver, on the other hand, shrieks a few premonitory Dutch
words--and then! I suppose inside those bovine heads the effect is
somewhat that of a violent electric explosion. At any rate it hits them
all at once, and all together, in response, they surge against their
yokes. The heavily laden wagon creaks, groans, moves forward. The
hurricane of Dutch and the volleys of whip crackings rise to a
crescendo. We are off!