TRACKERS OF THE CHERINGANI HILLS 



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only of small size in the region of the Tana, also in the Serengeti Plains 

 between Voi and Kilimanjaro, as also in the country south and east of Lake 

 Rudolf and in that about Mt. Kenia. 



After much study of the question, the Nzoia Plateau especially the 

 Cheringani Hills at its eastern part was chosen as the hunting ground, a 

 small area, about one hundred miles by seventy in 

 extent and some one hundred and fifty miles from 

 the railroad. This choice of territory fortunately 

 gave us as companions and guides, the warriors 

 of a little tribe there, the Cheringani Dorobo. 



In 1908 I had made friends with this small 

 tribe of poison-hunters. Secure in the fastnesses 

 of their dense woodlands, they had controlled the 

 land for ages. Fear of the deadly poison of their 

 arrows and the cunning secrecy of their deep- 

 spiked game-pits had kept off the hunting safari; 

 while the uncertain attitude toward the white men, 

 maintained until quite lately by their neighbors, 

 the Elgeyo tribe on the south and the Maraquette 

 on the north, had closed the door effectually in 

 that whole countryside to every expedition other 

 than a military one. These very shy natives now 

 agreed to come down from their mountain vil- 

 lages and serve the new expedition. Half a dozen 

 real trackers were soon picked out among them. 

 Three abreast where the ground was open they 

 would follow the spoor at a fast walk, and interpreting the rhino's brainless 

 wanderings — signs which even to the safari leader's experienced eyes were 

 invisible — would gain knowledge as to where the game was going and where 

 it would rest. 



The forest was so dense at times that we used some forty or fifty natives 

 as signallers and beaters. The method took time to organize but worked 

 well. The Cheringani were cautious when following rhino. It is very 

 easy to shoot this animal in the open. In dense cover it is another matter, 

 and beaters and trackers I must confess, spent much time safely if not use- 

 fully up trees. When on the trail of buffalo, which also are easily shot in 

 open country, only a few of the bravest would go into the black hollows that 

 hid the beasts, and once a buffalo was wounded I had to go in with them or 

 no one would go. Good fortune attended us however and in all the history 

 of the expedition no one of the hundred and fifty men was seriously in- 

 jured. The risk of hunting buffalo in wooded country is sadly proved, 

 if proof were necessary, by the later fate of the very best of the natives I 

 employed. He was a brave boy and wonderfully good as a tracker. After 



A well built Dorobo 



