186 THE LAND OF THE LION 
6é 3? 
cut” it, is quite twenty-four hours old. They may be 
found dozing under some shade trees only a few miles 
in advance, or: cooling their rugged flanks in the moist mud 
of one of the numerous marshes. Or they may be resolutely 
forging ahead at a pace just a little faster than that at which 
your splendidly agile natives can follow, never to pause or 
rest or feed, till some dearly loved haunt of theirs, known 
only to themsleves, is at last won. 
Following up spoor, then, is often trying work, far harder 
work than the hunter is called on to engage in in the pursuit of 
any other animal. Of course, many men get many ele- 
phants without following up the trail at all. They camp 
near some favourite river crossing, or within reasonable dis- 
tance of swampy feeding ground, and keep their natives 
scouring the country for news. ‘This is a good and, if you 
persist long enough, a generally successful plan of pro- 
ceeding. The natives of a district in which elephant are to 
be found are nearly always ready to lend a hand, as the meat 
is most welcome to them. But, as I have said elsewhere, 
the sefari should be so constituted as to make communi- 
cation with the shy wild man easy. Interpreters are as 
important in its make-up as porters and cooks, and _ this 
the inexperienced stranger is slow to realize. Here in this. 
very Nzoia country, only a few months ago, we missed ele- 
phant, though we hunted pretty thoroughly for them for 
three months all over it. It was a game of hide and seek. 
The elephant would cross the river while we were at the 
swamp, or spend the night in the swamp while we were 
watching the river. We never won over the N’dorobo. 
Had we succeeded in doing so, we could not well have 
failed of success. We had no one among us who knew 
either them or their language. When we met Nandi 
N’dorobo, who are no use whatever, but are only the wan- 
dering outcasts of blacklegs of the Nandi tribe (a flock own- 
ing people, having some affinities to the Massai), and, 
