ON SAFARI IN SOTIK WILDERNESS AND LAKE NAIVASHA 417 



made, occasions in which they cut loose from the civiHzed conditions of 

 the settled region and marched into the wilds, uninvaded as yet by the 

 plantation and the lazy ease and comfort of civilization, and left free 

 to the rule of untamed nature. It is the experience of the American 

 hunters on one of these untrammeled excursions which we here pro- 

 pose to describe. 



Great as had been the success of Colonel Roosevelt and his com- 

 panions in their six weeks' hunt in the vicinity of Nairobi, the capital 

 of British East Africa, and large as was the number of zoological 

 specimens collected in the interest of science, the expedition failed in 

 one particular. The rhinoceros had felt the weight of the Roosevelt 

 bullets on more than one occasion, but all the prizes gained belonged 

 to the ordinary black species. No specimen of the rare white rhinoc- 

 eros had been met with. Much larger than the black variety and with 

 a longer front horn, and brownish-white instead of black in color, this 

 species has been sought so sedulously by hunters that its near extinc- 

 tion is threatened, and Mr. Roosevelt was naturally very desirous 

 of adding at least one of these fast vanishing creatures to his list. 



When the news reached him that several of these animals had 

 recently been shot in the Sotik district, he determined to make his way 

 to that locality and see if luck would not throw one of these scarce ani- 

 mals in his way. The expedition therefore broke camp on the 5th of 

 June and set out on a long and arduous journey through the wilder- 

 ness to the region in question. 



The Sotik district lies in the southern part of KiskunI province, 

 about fifty miles from Lake Naivasha, and seventy-five miles east of 

 Victoria Nyanza, on the western side of the East African Railway. 

 It is difficult, if not dangerous, of access, the region between it and the 

 settled country being an almost waterless and impassable region. Dur- 

 ing the two and a half days' journey necessary to reach it water has to 

 be carried and the Roosevelt party set out with one hundred and 

 twenty-five gallons of water carried on the shoulders of porters. This 

 was deemed a sufficient supply to bring them across the thirst belt. 



In that tropical climate, high above sea-level as they were, the 

 sun beams with an intensity that renders travel under a cloudless sky 

 anything but agreeable, and the journey to Sotik was made mostly by 



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