OUR FIRST HUNTING EXPEDITION 



They had had to carry wood from the slope of the 

 escarpment for this our first night, as there was 

 none on the plain before us. 



As soon as it was dawn next morning, in fact 

 we were awake before, watching for the dark sky 

 we could see through a hole in the tent to turn 

 the faintest grey, Baruku brought us our breakfast, 

 and we started off again, leaving the porters to 

 follow more slowly. 



It takes a long time to get them off in the morn- 

 ing, when meat has been killed the evening before, 

 as they, having eaten it during most of the night, 

 consequently feel sluggish and disinclined to 

 move, and some are cooking joints which they 

 intend to carry with them ; others are still eating. 

 We saw plenty of " Tommies " (Thomson's gazelle), 

 kongoni (native name for hartebeeste) and zebra, 

 and my husband shot a Tommy for our supper. 

 They are excellent to eat, being much more tender 

 than kongoni, and we kept the meat for ourselves, 

 thinking it too good, and the animals too pretty, to 

 shoot for the greedy porters. There were plenty of 

 old elephant tracks and some fairly fresh ones, also 

 we saw the tracks of a rhino which must have 

 crossed our path that morning. But the plain 

 must be crossed in a day, there being no wood and 

 no water to camp by, till the trees at the base of 

 the hills of the Kinangop Range are reached, there- 

 fore we could not follow up the tracks, which might 



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