CHAPTER IX 

 TO LAKE NAIVASHA 



FROM this camp we turned north toward Lake Nai- 

 vasha. 



The Sotik country through which we had hunted was 

 sorely stricken by drought. The grass was short and with- 

 ered and most of the waterholes were drying up, while 

 both the game and the flocks and herds of the nomad Masai 

 gathered round the watercourses in which there were still 

 occasional muddy pools, and grazed their neighborhood 

 bare of pasturage. It was an unceasing pleasure to watch 

 the ways of the game and to study their varying habits. 

 Where there was a river from which to drink, or where there 

 were many pools, the different kinds of buck, and the zebra, 

 often showed comparatively little timidity about drinking, 

 and came boldly down to the water's edge, sometimes in 

 broad daylight, sometimes in darkness; although even 

 under those conditions they were very cautious if there was 

 cover at the drinking place. But where the pools were few 

 they never approached one without feeling panic dread of 

 their great enemy the lion, who, they knew well, might be 

 lurking around their drinking place. At such a pool I once 

 saw a herd of zebras come to water at nightfall. They stood 

 motionless some distance off; then they slowly approached, 

 and twice on false alarms wheeled and fled at speed; at last 

 the leaders ventured to the brink of the pool and at once the 



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