ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 103 



near which we were, rose Kilimakiu Mountain, beautifully 

 studded with groves of trees of many kinds. On its farther 

 side lived a tribe of the Wakamba. Their chief with all the 

 leading men of his village came in state to call upon ^me, 

 and presented me with a fat hairy sheep, of the ordinary 

 kind found in this part of Africa, where the sheep very 

 wisely do not grow wool. The headman was dressed in 

 khaki, and showed me with pride an official document 

 which confirmed him in his position by direction of the 

 government, and required him to perform various acts, 

 chiefly in the way of preventing his tribes-people from 

 committing robbery or murder, and of helping to stamp 

 out cattle disease. Like all the Wakamba they had flocks 

 of goats and sheep, and herds of humped cattle; but they 

 were much in need of meat and hailed my advent. They 

 were wild savages with filed teeth, many of them stark 

 naked, though some of them carried a blanket. Their 

 heads were curiously shaved so that the hair tufts stood out 

 in odd patterns, and they carried small bows, and arrows 

 with poisoned heads. 



The following morning I rode out with Captain Slatter. 

 We kept among the hills. The long drought was still un- 

 broken. The little pools were dry and their bottoms baked 

 like iron, and there was not a drop in the watercourses. 

 Part of the land was open and part covered with a thin 

 forest or bush of scattered mimosa-trees. In the open 

 country were many zebras and hartebeests, and the latter 

 were found even in the thin bush. In the morning we found 

 a small herd of eland at which, after some stalking, I got a 

 long shot and missed. The eland is the largest of all the 

 horned creatures that are called antelope, being quite as 

 heavy as a fattened ox. The herd I approached consisted 

 of a dozen individuals, two of them huge bulls, their coats 

 having turned a slaty blue, their great dewlaps hanging 

 down, and the legs looking almost too small for the massive 

 bodies. The reddish-colored cows were of far lighter build. 

 Eland are beautiful creatures and ought to be domesticated. 



