364 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



'Ndorobo were a unit in saying that these monkeys were 

 much more easy to see than their less brightly colored 

 kinsfolk who dwell in the same forests; and this was my 

 own experience. 



When camped in these high forests the woods after 

 nightfall were vocal with the croaking and wailing of the 

 tree hyraxes. They are squat, woolly, funny things, and to 

 my great amusement I found that most of the settlers 

 called them " Teddy bears." They are purely arboreal 

 and nocturnal creatures, living in hollows high up in the 

 big trees, by preference in the cedars. At night they are 

 very noisy, the call consisting of an opening series of ba- 

 trachian-like croaks, followed by a succession of quavering 

 wails eerie sounds enough, as they come out of the black 

 stillness of the midnight. They are preyed on now and 

 then by big owls and by leopards, and the white-tailed 

 mongoose is their especial foe, following them everywhere 

 among the tree tops. This mongoose is both terrestrial and 

 arboreal in habits, and is hated by the 'Ndorobo because it 

 robs their honey buckets. 



The bongo and the giant hog were the big game of these 

 deep forests, where a tangle of undergrowth filled the spaces 

 between the trunks of the cedar, the olive, and the yew or 

 yellow-wood, while where the bamboos grew they usually 

 choked out all other plants. Delamere had killed several 

 giant hogs with his half-breed hounds; but on this occasion 

 the hounds would not follow them. On three days we 

 came across bongo; once a solitary bull, on both the other 

 occasions herds. We never saw them, although we heard 

 the solitary bull crash off through the bamboos; for they 

 are very wary and elusive, being incessantly followed by the 



