The safari was using one of the game trails. It was a compact little
safari, comprising not over thirty men all told. The single white man
walked fifty yards or so ahead of the main body. He was evidently tired,
for his shoulders drooped, and his shuffling, slow-swinging gait would
anywhere have been recognized by children of the wilderness as that which
gets the greatest result from the least effort. Dressed in the brown cork
helmet, the brown flannel shirt with spine-pad, the khaki trousers, and
the light boots of the African traveller little was to be made of either
his face or figure. The former was fully bearded, the latter powerful
across the shoulders. His belt was heavy with little leather pockets; a
pair of prismatic field-glasses, suspended from a strap around his neck,
swung across his chest; in the crook of his left arm he carried a light
rifle.

Immediately at his heels followed a native. This man's face was in
conformation that of the typical negro; but there the resemblance ceased.
Behind the features glowed a proud, fierce spirit that transformed them.
His head was high but his eyes roved from right to left restlessly, never
still save when they paused for a flickering instant to examine some
gazelle, some distant herd of zebra or wildebeeste standing in the vista
of the flat-topped trees. His nostrils slowly expanded and contracted with
his breathing, as do those of a spirited horse. In contrast to the gait of
the white man he stepped vigorously and proudly as though the long day had
not touched his strength. He wore a battered old felt hat, a tattered
flannel shirt, a ragged pair of shorts, and the blue puttees issued by the
British to their native troops. The straps of two canteens crossed on his
breast; a full cartridge belt encircled his waist; he carried lightly and
easily one of those twelve-pound double cordite rifles that constitute the
only African life insurance.