ELEPHANT HUNTING 



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other old friends of former hunts, Kikuyu 'Ndorobo these, 

 who spoke Kikuyu like the people who cultivated the fields 

 that covered the river-bottoms and hill-sides of the adjoin- 

 ing open country, and who were, indeed, merely outlying, 

 forest-dwelling members of the lowland tribes. In the deep 

 woods we met one old Dorobo, who had no connection with 

 any more advanced tribe, whose sole 

 belongings were his spear, skin cloak, 

 and fire stick, and who lived purely on 

 honey and game; unlike the bastard 

 'Ndorobo, he was ornamented with 

 neither paint nor grease. But the 'Ndo- 

 robo who were our guides stood farther 

 up in the social scale. The men passed 

 most of their time in the forest, but up 

 the mountain sides they had squalid 

 huts on little clearings, with shambas, 

 where their wives raised scanty crops. 

 To the 'Ndorobo, and to them alone, 

 the vast, thick forest was an open book; 

 without their aid as guides both Cun- 

 inghame and our own gun-bearers were 

 at fault, and found their way around 

 with great difficulty and slowness. 

 The bush people had nothing in the 

 way of clothing save a blanket over The - Ndorobo who ha <i h ys 

 the shoulders, but wore the usual 

 paint and grease and ornaments; each 

 carried a spear which might have a 

 long and narrow, or short and broad blade; two of them 

 wore head-dresses of tripe skull-caps made from the inside 

 of a sheep's stomach. 



For two days after reaching our camp in the open glade 

 on the mountain side it rained. We were glad of this, 

 because it meant that the elephants would not be in the 

 bamboos, and Cuninghame and the 'Ndorobo went off to 

 hunt for fresh signs. Cuninghame is as skilful an elephant 



terics on the elephant 



From a photograph by Edmund 

 Heller 



