We now come to the ‘safari’ (caravan) as a whole. After the headman has been engaged and an approximate list of loads made out, including everything--barter goods of beads, cloth, and wire, private kit, tents, stores, ammunition--both private and for defensive purposes, cooking gear, &c., the headman should be told how many porters and askaris will be required, and it is well to let him engage as many of them as he can himself in order that he may know something of their antecedents. As they are brought up by the headman to be engaged, they should be entered in the list in companies of ten men, each company under an askari. They then receive their advance pay, and can be either told off to do any work there may be for them to do, or they can have their posho given them at once and may be left to their own devices. As long as they are in Mombasa, or any coast town, they should be mustered every morning for any work there may be, and again in the evening to receive their posho. It is always advisable to engage two or three extra porters over and above the estimated number of loads, as even in the best organised caravans, and when all the porters are present at the last moment, something is sure to turn up that has been overlooked, such as a bundle of rope, a basket of potatoes and onions, or a crate of fowls. The two latter comestibles, although they have never been given a thought since the cook received the order to get them, are of much importance, and help considerably to save the tinned provisions and to reconcile a man to the miseries of the first few days in the wilderness, after the fleshpots of Mombasa. The first day of getting under way will perhaps be found the most trying of any to the patience and temper, unless some little trouble is taken to minimise the confusion generally attending the start of a caravan for ‘up-country.’ To effect this, the whole of the men should have at least two days’ notice beforehand of their master’s decision to start on a certain day, and the night before the start the whole caravan should be told, when they come for their posho, to muster and fall in in the morning at least a couple of hours before they are actually wanted. The whole of the loads should then be laid out in lots of ten. The porters having fallen in to their respective companies with their askari, and having answered to the roll-call, the rifles and cartridge-belts should be distributed amongst them. Their posho in rice should then be issued to them, and may vary in quantity according to the destination of the safari; but should it be anywhere along the Teita route, ten days’ posho is usually given, which will last them well over the Maungu wilderness, till Teita is reached, where food of various kinds is procurable. Ten days’ food is as much as a porter can be expected to carry on leaving the coast, when he is soft and out of training, though up country, in places like the Masai district, where no vegetable food is procurable, he will not only carry twelve to fifteen days’ food, but also an extra heavy load into the bargain. Each company should then be told off to a lot of ten loads, and every man should be ordered to put some private mark of his own on his allotted load so as to recognise it again. This is important, as it not only prevents confusion, but a good deal of quarrelling amongst the men when moving camp each morning, sometimes in the dark, should there be a long waterless march ahead.