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
element; it has done things; it contemplates vital problems from the
vantage ground of experience. The talk veers from pole to pole--and
returns always to lions.
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