^22 ON SAFARI IN SOTIK WILDERNESS AND LAKE NAIVASHA 



have been sure to provoke a charge. Had a shot been fired it would 

 have roused the latent ferocity of the dangerous beasts, w^ith the same 

 result. The imperilled hunters were obliged to stand motionless and 

 stare back at the staring herd. As it proved, the movement of the 

 animals was due only to curiosity. After a few seconds of intense sus- 

 pense, the hunters were overjoyed to see their horned foes wheel again 

 and rush away across the plain. The peril had passed ; their lives were 

 saved ; but never before had any of them gone through a minute of such 

 deadly risk. 



At the end of the five weeks' hunt in Sotik the Roosevelt expedi- 

 tion set out on their return, heading now towards Lake Naivasha, in 

 the Rift Valley, where it was proposed to hunt for hippopotami. Mr. 

 Roosevelt desired to bag three of these animals for the Smithsonian 

 Institution, a bull, a cow, and a calf; also to obtain a specimen of the 

 rare dig-dig antelope, a bushback and a baboon. He had been invited 

 to spend a season on Captain R. Attenborough's farm, Saigai Sai, 

 adjoining the lake, the captain ofifering him the use of his launch in his 

 hippo hunts. 



The journey outward from Sotik resembled the inward one. 

 Though pursuing a different route, it was over a practically waterless 

 country as before, long marches being made with such supplies of this 

 necessary liquid as the porters could carry. At one part of their march 

 they sought a known water-hole on the line of march and reached it 

 to find it absolutely dry. That night they had to go without water. 



Reaching the shores of Lake Naivasha, the camp was pitched in 

 a sandy and dusty spot, the water-side being fringed with a growth 

 of papyrus, bush and thorn trees. This place was reached on July 13. 

 On the 14th the camp was visited by a newspaper correspondent who 

 had ridden thither twenty-five miles on a bicycle. He was warmly 

 greeted and had the good fortune to see ex-President Roosevelt on the 

 lake in a hippopotamus hunt. It gave the looker-on a thrill of apprehen- 

 sion to see the daring hunter in a frail rowing boat at the moment 

 that a huge hippopotamus was in the act of charging the craft. Un- 

 used to such scenes, the newspaper man found it difficult to control his 

 nerves as he witnessed what seemed the imminent danger of the 

 distinguished man before him. Yet his spasm of dread was changed 



