392 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



stand; then he pondered a moment or two, and suddenly 

 leaped into the air exclaiming in Swahili, "Now I am a big 

 man." And he faithfully strove to justify his promotion. 

 In similar fashion Kermit picked out on the Nairobi race- 

 track a Kikuyu sais named Magi, and brought him out 

 with us. Magi turned out the best sais in the safari; and 

 besides doing his own duty so well he was always ex- 

 ceedingly interested in everything that concerned his own 

 Bwana, Kermit, or me from the proper arrangement of 

 our sunpads to the success of our shooting. 



From the giraffe camp we went two days' journey to 

 the 'Nzoi River. Until this Uasin Gishu trip we had been 

 on waters which either vanished in the desert or else flowed 

 into the Indian Ocean. Now we had crossed the divide, 

 and were on the Nile side of the watershed. The 'Nzoi, a 

 rapid muddy river, passing south of Mount Elgon, empties 

 into the Victoria Nyanza. Our route to its bank led across 

 a rolling country, covered by a dense growth of tall grass, 

 and in most places by open thorn scrub, while here and 

 there, in the shallow valleys or depressions, were swamps. 

 There were lions, and at night we heard them; but in such 

 long grass it was wellnigh hopeless to look for them. Evi- 

 dently troops of elephants occasionally visited these plains, 

 for the tops of the little thorn-trees were torn off and browsed 

 down by the mighty brutes. How they can tear off and 

 swallow such prickly dainties as these thorn branches, 

 armored with needle-pointed spikes, is a mystery. Tarlton 

 told me that he had seen an elephant, while feeding greedily 

 on the young top of a thorn-tree, prick its trunk until it 

 uttered a little scream or whine of pain; and it then in a 

 fit of pettishness revenged itself by wrecking the thorn-tree. 



Game abounded on the plains. We saw a couple of 

 herds of giraffes. The hartebeests were the most plenti- 

 ful and the least shy; time after time a small herd loitered 

 until we were within a hundred yards before cantering 

 away. Once or twice we saw topi among them; and often 

 there were mixed herds of zebras and hartebeests, Oribi 



