362 TO THE UASIN GISHU [ch. xii 



returned until after nightfall ; and, tired though he was, 

 he enjoyed to the full the walks campward in the bright 

 moonlight among the palm groves beside the rushing 

 streams, while the cicadas cried like katydids at home. 

 The grass was long. The weather was very hot, and 

 almost every day there were drenching thunderstorms, 

 and the dews were exceedingly heavy, so that Kermit 

 was wet almost all the time, although he kept in first- 

 rate health. There were not many sable, and they were 

 shy. About nine or ten o'clock they would stop feed- 

 ing, and leave their pasture-grounds of long grass, taking 

 refuge in some grove of trees and thick bushes, not 

 coming out again until nearly five o'clock. 



On the second day's hunting Juma spied a little band 

 of sable just entering a grove. A long and careful stalk 

 brought the hunters to the grove, but after reaching it 

 they at first saw nothing of tlie game. Tlien Kermit 

 caught a glimpse of a head, fired, and brought down the 

 beast in its tracks. It proved to be a bull, just clianging 

 from the red to the black coat ; tlie liorns were ftiir — in 

 this northern form they never reach tlie length of those 

 borne by the sable bulls of South Africa. He also killed 

 a cow, not fully grown. He therefore still needed a 

 full-grown cow, which he obtained three days later. 

 This animal, when wounded, was very savage, and tried 

 to charge. 



We now went to Nairobi, where Cuninghame, Tarlton, 

 and the three natiualists were already preparing for the 

 Uganda trip and shipping the stuff' hitherto collected. 

 Working like beavers, we got everything ready — in- 

 cluding additions to the pigskin library, which included, 

 among others, Cervantes, Goethe's " Faust," Moliere, 

 Pascal, Montaigne, St. Simon, Darwin's " Voyage of the 

 Beagle,'' and Huxley's "Essays" — and on December 18th 

 started for Lake Victoria Nyanza. 



