ACROSS THE MAU ESCARPMENT 65 
northward, and in the broad bottom of the valley of the 
Kerio-Elgao country, only ten miles to the right, buffalo 
are plentiful, but can only be successfully hunted when the 
grass is quite short. The Elgao absolutely refuse to go 
after them while it is long. And the Cherangang forests 
are so full of staked game pits, that no man, not even an 
N’dorobo is safe among them, unless at the same time of 
year (January to June). 
Between the plateau you stand on and this last range, 
there opens the deep gorge in which the Nzoia River has 
one of its chief sources. Here, too, the elephant sometimes 
makes a halt, it is so near home, and the rocky sides of 
the valley shelter many a leopard. As the fine stream 
leaves its rough cradle, and winds among the rich lands 
farther north, its banks grow marshy in places, and num- 
berless sedgy hollows drain down to it from the uplands. 
In these or near them is the chosen retreat of the finest 
water buck in East Africa (Sing Sing). My friend secured, 
thirty miles farther down the river, the record head for the 
Protectorate (33 inches long by 32, spread, tip to tip — 
such a spread is quite unusual in East Africa). 
About twenty-five miles from the rock, the Nzoia bends 
back to the southwest, sweeping round the slopes of Elgon. 
In the flat, reedy prairies on its margin, and only there, a 
fine antelope is found in great abundance —kobus kob.. 
Be merciful to him, good brother sportsman. He is 
easiest of all Nzoia’s wild company to kill. Very hand- 
| some he is, and very poor meat when killed. So, though 
_ by an oversight in the game laws, you may shoot ten, 
| hunt up zebra again, they are much larger, and the men 
think them better eating, and be content with one or at most 
two pair of the strong, gracefully curving horns. 
There are hippo everywhere on this lower part of Nzoia, 
and a very few rhino. But, leaving these out of count, 
for river hippo are always small, and rhino horns in this 
