African Camp Fires by Stewart Edward White
page 86 of 268 (32%)
page 86 of 268 (32%)
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constantly varied pageant passes before him. A daintily dressed,
fresh-faced Englishwoman bobs by in a smart rickshaw drawn by two uniformed runners; a Kikuyu, anointed, curled, naked, brass adorned, teeters along, an expression of satisfaction on his face; a horseman, well appointed, trots briskly by followed by his loping syce; a string of skin-clad women, their heads fantastically shaved, heavily ornamented, lean forward under the burden of firewood for the market; a beautiful baby in a frilled perambulator is propelled by a tall, solemn, fine-looking black man in white robe and cap; the driver of a high cart tools his animal past a creaking, clumsy, two-wheeled wagon drawn by a pair of small humpbacked native oxen. And so it goes, all day long, without end. The public rickshaw boys just across the way chatter and game and quarrel and keep a watchful eye out for a possible patron on whom to charge vociferously and full tilt. Two or three old-timers with white whiskers and red faces continue to slaughter thousands and thousands and thousands of lions from the depths of their easy chairs. The stone veranda of that hotel is a very interesting place. Here gather men from all parts of East Africa, from Uganda, and the jungles of the Upper Congo. At one time or another all the famous hunters drop into its canvas chairs--Cunninghame, Allan Black, Judd, Outram, Hoey, and the others; white traders with the natives of distant lands; owners of farms experimenting bravely on a greater or lesser scale in a land whose difficulties are just beginning to be understood; great naturalists and scientists from the governments of the earth, eager to observe and collect this interesting and teeming fauna; and sportsmen just out and full of interest, or just returned and modestly important. More absorbing conversation can be listened to on this veranda than in any other one place in the world. The gathering is cosmopolitan; it is representative of the most active of every social, political, and racial |
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