African game trails by Theodore Roosevelt

Author:Theodore Roosevelt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

I had kept four Kikuyu with me to accompany me on my hunts and carry in the skins and meat. They were with me on this occasion; and it was amusing to see how my four regular attendants, Bakhari and Gouvimali the gunbearers, Simba the sais, and Kiboko the skinner, looked down on their wild and totally uncivilized brethren. They would not associate with the "shenzis," as they called them; that is, savages or bush people. But the "shenzis" always amused and interested me; and this was especially true on the afternoon in question. Soon after we had started campwards with the skin and meat of the oryx, we encountered a succession of thunder-storms. The rain came down in a deluge, so that the water stood ankle deep on the flats, the lightning flashed continuously on every side, and the terrific peals of thunder made one continuous roll. At first it maddened my horse; but the uninterrupted blaze and roar, just because uninterrupted, ended by making him feel that there was nothing to be done, and he plodded stolidly forward through the driving storm. My regular attendants accepted it with an entire philosophy, which was finally copied by the Kikuyus, who at first felt frightened. One of them had an old umbrella which he shared with a crony. He himself was carrying the marabou stork; his crony had long strips of raw oryx meat wound in a swollen girdle about his waist; neither had a stitch on save the blankets which were wrapped round their throats; and they clasped each other in a tight embrace as they walked along under the battered old umbrella.

In this desolate and lonely land the majesty of the storms impressed on the beholder a sense of awe and solemn exaltation. Tossing their crests, and riven by lightning, they gathered in their wrath from every quarter of the heavens, and darkness was before and under them; then, in the lull of a moment, they might break apart, while the sun turned the rain to silver and the rainbows were set in the sky; but always they gathered again, menacing and mighty,—for the promise of the bow was never kept, and ever the clouds returned after the rain. Once as I rode facing Kenia the clouds tore asunder, to right and left, and the mountain towered between, while across its base was flung a radiant arch. But almost at once the many-colored glory was dimmed; for in splendor and terror the storm strode in front, and shrouded all things from sight in thunder-shattered sheets of rain.

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