356 TO THE UASIN GISHU [ch. xii 



a rhino immediately afterward. Dr. Kolb was fond of 

 rhinoceros hver, and killed scores of the animals for 

 food ; but finally a cow, with a half-grown calf, which 

 he had wounded, charged him and thrust her horn right 

 through the middle of his body. 



We spent several days vainly hunting bongo in the 

 dense mountain forests with half a dozen 'Ndorobo. 

 These were true 'Ndorobo, who never cultivate the 

 ground, living in the deep forests on wild honey and 

 game. It has been said that they hunt but little, and 

 only elephant and rhino ; but this is not correct as 

 regards the 'Ndorobo in question. They were all clad 

 in short cloaks of the skin of the tree hyrax ; hyrax, 

 monkey, bongo, and forest hog, the only game of the 

 dense, cool, wet forest, were all habitually killed by 

 them. They also occasionally killed rhino and buffalo, 

 finding the former, because it must occasionally be 

 attacked in the open, the more dangerous of the two. 

 Twice Delamere had come across small communities of 

 'Ndorobo literally starving because the strong man, the 

 chief hunter, the breadwinner, had been killed by a 

 rhino which he had attacked. The headman of those 

 with us, who was named Mel-el-lek, had himself been 

 fearfully injured by a wounded buffalo ; and the father 

 of another one who was with us had been killed by 

 baboons which had rallied to the aid of one which he 

 was trying to kill with his knobkerry. Usually they 

 did not venture to meddle with the lions which they 

 found on the edge of the forest, or with the leopards 

 which occasionally dwelt in the deep woods ; but once 

 Mel-el-lek killed a leopard with a poisoned arrow from 

 a tree, and once a whole party of them attacked and 

 killed with their poisoned arrows a lion which had slain 

 a cow buffalo near the forest. On another occasion a 



