THE BERBEKI VALET 69 less add to this knowledge with facility under future employers. He will before long attain a perfection which will prevent him from drawing corks with his teeth, offering the spout of the teapot rather than the handle, and a shirt inside out, and will refrain from the hitherto invariable practice of putting tlie wrong legging on the wrong leg. The complimentary term Magnun adequately describes him, and his greatest virtue lies in the fact that he does not snore, a valuable consideration when on safarkir But little of that hippopotamus was left for the crocodiles, hyaenas, or leopards, that night ; indeed, the utilization of nearly all parts, internal economy included, was an instruction to fastidious European taste. Strip by strip was cut away from the huge joints and hung on improvised rails well above the reach of four-footed marauders, to dry into biltong which would serve my camp-followers for weeks to come in their villages far behind.

By the evening of the next day the presence of the biltong had become impressive, but the Arab in these matters has no nose ; neither camel nor semi-putrefaction are existent to him.

Many are the long walks undertaken, yielding all the incidents, or lack of them, which come to the fortune of a hunter. The shikari stops in his tracks and examines the ground, which may contain little, if any, meaning to an untrained eye ; a whispered debate ensues, and while beaters make for one end of a narrow island in the dry river-bed, I make