CH. X] THE MERU COUNTRY 257 



savage beast ; its skin was in fine shape, but it was not 

 fat, and weighed just one hundred pounds. Now we all 

 joined and shifted camp to a point eight or nine miles 

 distant from Meru Boma, and fifteen hundred feet lower 

 among the foothills. It was much hotter at this lower 

 level ; palms were among the trees that bordered the 

 streams. On the day we shifted camp, Tarlton and I 

 rode in advance to look for elephants, followed by our 

 gun-bearers and half a dozen wild Meru iumters, each 

 carrying a spear or a bow and arrows. When we 

 reached the hunting-grounds — open country with groves 

 of trees and patches of jungle — the Meru went off in 

 every direction to find elephants. We waited their 

 return under a tree, by a big stretch of cultivated 

 ground. The region was well peopled, and all the way 

 down the path had led between fields, which the JNleru 

 women were tilling with their adze-like hoes, and 

 banana plantations, where among the bananas other 

 trees had been planted, and the yam vines trained up 

 their trunks. These cool, shady banana plantations, 

 fenced in witli tall hedges and bordered by rapid brooks, 

 were really very attractive. Among them were scattered 

 villages of conical thatched huts, and level places 

 plastered with cow-dung, on which the grain was 

 threshed ; it was then stored in huts raised on posts. 

 There were herds of cattle and fiocks of sheep and goats, 

 and among the burdens the women bore we often saw 

 huge bottles of milk. In the shambas there were plat- 

 forms, and sometimes regular thatched huts, placed in 

 the trees ; these were for the watchers, who were to 

 keep the elephants out of the shambas at night. Some 

 of the natives wore girdles of banana leaves, looking, as 

 Kermit said, much like the pictures of savages in 

 Sunday-school books. 



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