164 THE LAND OF THE LION 
and totos, growing and tiny, the great tuskers generally 
keeping to themselves. 
Then is the time when the hunter may take his toll. 
They are far from any safe retreating place, and the nature 
of the country makes approach comparatively easy. Ina 
few years at most they may be expected to learn caution, 
and to descend less frequently or in fewer numbers to their 
loved pleasure ground. But they have been hunted so 
little here as yet that for some time to come they are more 
likely to be met with near the Nzoia River, than in any 
other part of British East Africa. 
Great tusks, too, these Elgon elephants sometimes carry, 
not so large, it is true, as their cousins of Uganda, where 
teeth of two hundred pound the pair are quite common, but 
still very much larger than those of elephants found in any 
other part of the country. My present companion and 
hunter, Mr. A. C. Hoey, has been at the death of several 
of these ancient bulls — one pair, records, I think, for the 
Protectorate, weighed 137 and 128 pounds respectively. 
No hunting is as uncertain as elephant hunting. They 
are here to-day, quite fifty miles off to-morrow. They 
stay for days, or even weeks in a country where almost 
any greenhorn can shoot them, or they slip silently, like 
great noiselessly moving ghosts, by your tent fires in the 
night, and you couldn’t persuade yourself of the reality 
of their visit, did you not see, in the morning, the broadly 
beaten track. 
You hastily rally your gunbearers, fill your saddle 
bags and rush off on the spoor. Do not be in so great a 
hurry that you cut short your breakfast, or fail to fill your 
water bottle. In all likelihood you are in for a wearying 
day. Put an extra saddle blanket on your mule or pony. 
The nights are chilly, and you may need it before you see 
camp again. There is no experience the hunter meets with, 
in Africa, no pursuit of any of its game, that tries him as 
