CH. xii] THE XII.K WATERSHED 833 



not quite understand ; tlien he pondered a moment or 

 two, and suddenly leaped into the air, exclaiming in 

 Swahili : " Now I am a big man." And he faithfully 

 stro\'e to justify his promotion. In similar fashion 

 Kermit picked out on the Nairobi race-track a Kikuyu 

 sais named Magi, and brought him out with us. Magi 

 turned out the best sais in the safari, and besides doing 

 his own duty so well, he was always exceedingly inter- 

 ested in everything that concerned his own Bwana, 

 Kermit, or me, from the proper arrangement of our sun- 

 pads to the success of our shooting. 



From the giraffe camp we went two days' journey to 

 the 'Nz-oi River. Until this Uasin Gishu trip we had 

 been on waters which either vanished in the desert or 

 else flowed into the Indian Ocean. Now we had crossed 

 the divide, and were on the Nile side of the watershed. 

 The 'Nzoi, a rapid, muddy river passing south of Mount 

 Elgon, empties into the Victoria Nyanza. Our route 

 to its bank led across a rollhig country, covered by a 

 dense growth of tall grass, and in most places by open 

 thorn scrub, while here and there, in the shallow valleys 

 or depressions, were swamps, 'i'here were lions, and 

 at night we heard them ; but in such long grass it was 

 wellnigh hopeless to look for them. Evidently troops 

 of elephants occasionally visited these plahis, for the 

 tops of the little thorn-trees were torn off and browsed 

 down by the mighty brutes. How they can tear off 

 and swallow sucli prickly dainties as these thorn 

 branches, armoured with needle -pointed spikes, is a 

 mystery. Tarlton told me that he had seen an elephant, 

 while feeding greedily on the yoimg top of a thorn-tree, 

 prick its trunk imtil it uttered a little scream or whine 

 of pain ; and it then, in a fit of pettishness, revenged 

 itself by wrecking the thorn-tree. 



