OUR SECOND SAFARI 



surprised that the porters could eat so much, but 

 he said, " Oh, no ! Saidi had eaten it all in twenty- 

 four hours ! " No wonder he had a pain. 



We moved on past where my husband had 

 chased his elephant, to our old camp. We found 

 since the past safari an elephant had been where 

 our tent was pitched before. There were other old 

 elephant tracks, and one more recent — that ele- 

 phant must have passed during the last twenty-four 

 hours ; but though we followed it up we saw nothing 

 of him. We found the going pretty bad, as it rained 

 for hours and hailed big stones on to us, making 

 the paths full of water and mud. We passed a 

 large number of native traps, not made of bamboos 

 but other slender trees. 



While in this last camp we decided to return 

 the way we had come, as there were plenty of 

 animal tracks ; going back by short marches, in- 

 stead of on straight to Naivasha by long marches, 

 with no chance of seeing anything to shoot, to say 

 nothing of getting back before our leave was up. 



But the porters gave trouble again, they filed 

 past our tent door, all looking very solemn, and sat 

 down in a circle not far away, and had a *' shawri " 

 (talk). I could see something was up, so asked 

 Baruku the meaning of it, and he said the porters 

 wished to go straight back to Naivasha and not re- 

 turn the way we intended. This was annoying, as 

 we were ready packed-up to start, my husband and 



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