T A B L E_T A L K Do dogs and airplanes mix? Discuss the ins and outs of traveling with pets in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y "Live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse" By Lesley Hazleton Searching for the site where James Dean died (09/25/98) Letter from Pusan: The party's over By Rolf Potts The heady rise and fall of expat decadence in South Korea (09/24/98) Swimsuits -- and more! By Beverly Gage Past and present collide at Atlantic City's annual Miss America extravaganza (09/23/98) The cheapest air ticket around By Dawn MacKeen Couriers fly halfway around the world at half (or less) the normal price (09/22/98) Paris' cafe renaissance By David Downie There's a lively new scene in the City of Caffeine (09/21/98) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner		R U N N I N G__W I T H__T H E__H A D Z A ____Tanzania's Stone Age tribe represents a living link to our earliest ancestors. BY ERIC SEYFARTH | This is the most furious cigarette break I have ever seen. The four Hadza hunters pass a Marlboro in a circle, taking drags as though it was the last smoke on earth. Each epic inhalation is followed by ceremonial and phlegm-producing spasms of coughing and a nervous twitching of fingers that is the international sign of a person in need of another hit. The Marlboro is sucked to the filter in record time. Just as the last drag is being wrested, Numbile points across the dry riverbed and the hunters are off in a silent sprint. With a coordination directed without words, the men fan out as they reach the other bank. Numbile is the oldest, fastest and, as far as I can tell, most experienced of the hunters. He is trailed by Asamiakoi, Bubute and Shokoji. Two of the hunters wear cloth loin coverings, and two wear Western shorts. Each is shirtless and carries a bow that matches his height. The bow and a half-dozen long arrows with white-speckled feathers are carried in each man's left hand as he runs. All have knives fastened at the waist by a leather cord. Red dust flies like psychedelic tracers from their sandals and glimmers in the broiling sun. I don't know what they are after, but I do know that I want to follow. This is a ridiculous idea. I am dropped after 10 paces. On the other side of the riverbed, I find myself alone, weaving through the thigh-tearing acacia thorns with the grace of a slalom skier on cafeteria trays. I realize that I am making a lot of game-scattering noise, and that unlike me, the hunters rely on stealth to make a living. Then I realize, and this is much more important, that I am running blindly through the Tanzanian bush within lethal range of four well-armed hunters, whom I have met only 15 minutes ago. I'm sure that the hunters would never try to harm me, so I am more worried about running through their line of fire than them firing at me. I stop. The stillness merely stokes the tension. This is a land of large, stunningly successful predators. A crash in the bush behind me ignites a panic flash, quickly followed by the calming realization that such a racket could only come from my lagging companions: my wife, Jennifer, my friends Sara and Karl and the guy with the Marlboros who got us here in the first place, Patrick. We stagger into a clearing. We are red-faced, hands on our knees, gasping for air. We are a sorry example of our species. Patrick points 50 yards away to where our hosts are gathered under a tree. The smallest hunter, Shokoji, is up in the menacing-looking acacia, extracting an arrow-impaled bird called a francolin. We walk toward the hunters. Patrick reaches for a cigarette. The four hunters are among less than 1,000 Hadza who still live almost entirely beyond the reach of the developed world. I had come to Tanzania with the promise of meeting these Hadza, who are among the last nomadic people left on the continent. Before leaving, I had read everything I could find about the Hadza, which wasn't much: a few anthropology texts, a smattering of information on the Internet and the eloquent "The Tree Where Man Was Born," by Peter Matthiessen, which documents his time with the tribe in the late 1960s. According to a local conservation guidebook, "Their way of life has probably been typical of humanity for much of our evolution." That way of life is fading fast. The actual number of Hadza is anybody's guess, because their habits defy the very notion of a census. They build no shelters, carry few possessions and move constantly in search of game. They hunt with poison-tipped arrows. They are gifted runners -- something that I learned firsthand -- relying on their speed and endurance to pursue wounded game for hours while the toxin takes effect. More easy to count are the forces that conspire against them: farming, cattle-ranching, encroaching settlement and a government hell-bent on modernization. This is all in the name of progress, if for no other reason than that progress is measured in such things. And in developing African nations, progress -- a deity clad in a European suit clutching a cell phone -- reigns above all else. According to the presumptuously named Friends of Peoples Close to Nature, a European organization that has made a cause of the Hadza, girls and young women have been abducted and enslaved into prostitution in nearby towns, children are forced to attend school to learn English and Swahili while their own language is rejected and missionaries have subverted traditional beliefs. By any standard of measure, the Hadza are losing badly in the struggle against better organized and more aggressive neighbors. Cattle farming, particularly by Masai and Datoga herders, has severely damaged the land and eliminated traditional game. In a place with very little water to begin with, the Hadza have been cut off from traditional water sources now appropriated by herders. Much of the water that is still accessible has been fouled by cattle. Parks and other preserves established for the enjoyment of foreign tourists have further reduced the available land. The Hadza are cultural holdouts as well. Their click-tongue speech is unrelated to other languages in the region. Because their language is similar to the San of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa, some believe that they migrated from the south, but that cultural link was cut ages ago. N E X T+P A G E | Our central-casting guidet