TO LAKE NAIVASHA 203 



him standing, plunged in meditation probably it would be 

 more accurate to say, thinking of absolutely nothing, as if he 

 had been a huge turtle. After leaving him we also passed 

 by files of zebra and topi who gazed at us, intent and 

 curious, within two hundred yards, until we had gone by 

 and the danger was over; whereupon they fled in fright. 



The so-called salt marsh consisted of a dry watercourse, 

 with here and there a deep muddy pool. The ground . 

 was impregnated with some saline substance, and the 

 game licked it, as well as coming to water. Our camp 

 was near two reedy pools, in which there were big yellow- 

 billed ducks, while queer brown herons, the hammerhead, 

 had built big nests of sticks in the tall acacias. Bush cuckoos 

 gurgled in the underbrush by night and day. Brilliant roll- 

 ers flitted through the trees. There was much sweet bird 

 music in the morning. Funny little elephant shrews with 

 long snouts, and pretty zebra mice, evidently of diurnal 

 habit, scampered among the bushes or scuttled into their 

 burrows. (Tiny dikdiks, antelopes no bigger than hares, J 

 with swollen muzzles, and their little horns half hidden by 

 tufts of hair, ran like rabbits through the grass; the females 

 were at least as large as the males, f Another seven-foot 

 cobra was killed/) There were brilliant masses of the red 

 aloe flowers, and of yellow-blossomed vines. Around the 

 pools the ground was bare, and the game trails leading to 

 the water were deeply rutted by the hooves of the wild 

 creatures that had travelled them for countless generations. 



The day after reaching this camp, Cuninghame and 

 I hunted on the plains. Before noon we made out with our 

 glasses two rhino lying down, a mile off. As usual with 

 these sluggish creatures we made our preparations in 



