200 TO LAKE NAIVASHA [ch. ix 



cocked forward, but he did nothing more, and we left 

 him standing, pkmged in meditation — probably it would 

 be more accurate to say, thinking of absolutely nothing, 

 as if he had been a huge turtle. After leaving him we 

 also passed by files of zebra and topi, who gazed at us, 

 intent and curious, within two hundred yards, until we 

 had gone by and the danger was over, whereupon they 

 fled in fright. 



The so-called salt marsh consisted of a dry water- 

 course, with here and there a deep muddy pool. The 

 ground was impregnated with some saline substance, 

 and the game licked it, as well as coming to water. 

 Our camp was near two reedy pools, in which there 

 were big yellow-billed ducks, while queer brown herons, 

 the hammerhead, had built big nests of sticks in the 

 tall acacias. Bush cuckoos gurgled in the underbrush 

 by night and day. Brilliant rollers flitted through the 

 trees. There was much sweet bird music in the morn- 

 ing. Funny little elephant shrews with long snouts, 

 and pretty zebra mice, evidently of diurnal habit, 

 scampered among the bushes or scuttled into their 

 burrows. Tiny dikdiks, antelopes no bigger than hares, 

 with swollen muzzles, and their little horns half hidden 

 by tufts of hair, ran like rabbits through the grass ; the 

 females were at least as large as the males. Another 

 seven-foot cobra was killed. There were brilliant 

 masses of the red aloe flowers, and of yellow-blossomed 

 vines. Around the pools the ground was bare, and the 

 game trails leading to the water were deeply rutted by 

 the hoofs of the wild creatures that had travelled them 

 for countless generations. 



The day after reaching this camp, Cuninghame and 

 I hunted on the plains. Before noon we made out with 

 our glasses two rhinos lying down, a mile off. As usual 



