THIS is the great Fourth of July, and as true Americans we have celebrated it appropriately here in the British Protectorate Colony of Tanganyika.

The Stars and Stripes float over our camp. We started the day by setting off three firecrackers, some of the supply with which we scare lions out of cover. Then we went out and twisted the British Lion's tail, three times, that is, Bwana White and Young took a long ride in the national car, the car that made America famous, and after locating another camp site some twenty-five miles from here, where the wild zebra and the wilder wildebeest roam the plains in great abundance and the wild grass is extra plentiful and wild; after locating all this they met up with five lions and bagged with the guns two, and as they came home in the afternoon they met an old lioness just outside the camp that had not had a square meal for two weeks and tried to take a piece out of the car, so they shot her and brought her home to help the celebration.

Then we wound up by taking a zealously guarded piece of pound cake that had been brought all the way from London for the event, and found that this English cake had turned rancid at the thought of our national independence; so we contented ourselves by playing "God Save the King" followed up by two chasers, "The Star Spangled Banner" and "Dixie" —played by the full orchestra—three in all—count 'em!

But the past week has been a quiet one, we have hunted lions and brought home quite a number of skins. They have, however, not been shot with the bow. In fact I doubt that we shall shoot any more of them with our honorable old weapon. White is not willing to take the responsibility of backing us up with the heavy artillery. He contends that it is too much of a job for one man. I guess he is right. We have had some close figuring, and just one mistake in judgment would mean turning the tables on the hunters, something that is fair enough all right, but there are the women and children to think of, to say very little of the distressing personal inconvenience of being mangled by a justly indignant lion.

Just at present we are working on the blind problem: shooting from blinds up in trees, at game that cannot be approached by any other means. In many ways in this African hunt we find ourselves defeated in our preconceived plans of procedure. Where we considered the abundance of game a favorable factor in securing meat, we find that this very abundance militates against our success. We stalk a waterbuck by a manoeuvre that should be successful, and four reed buck and two dik diks jump out of the grass ahead of us, where they were hidden. They so startle the waterbuck that our half hour of careful approach goes for nothing and the opportunity has vanished. We make an early morning hunt for topi, one of those large antelope, and after five or six miles of walking, we come upon a suitable group for a stealthy attack. We get down in the dry donga and laboriously crawl through thorns and jungle grass, only to find that a bunch of Tommies on the opposite side of the donga has winded us and scampered off over the plains and put the entire game field in a state of commotion. We lose the topi.

Birds protect a large number of game animals and they are forever piping forth their warnings to some favorite beast. The rhino has a regular crew of tick birds that perch on his ears or horn or eyelids and feast upon his pendulous ticks. When these busy-bodies see a man they soar aloft and squeak their notes of warning so that even this sodden dunce is aroused to apprehension and lumbers off "into the blue." Giraffes are walking ladders for gay little fowls that run up and down their necks and never seem to leave their host. These also act as informants and gossips.

The hornbill, a large magpie sort of a bird, is a great hand to trumpet forth the glad tidings to all the animal kingdom, "A man has come to town!" Waterbucks especially appear to have a ready ear for this type of scandal.