418 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



with a half-grown calf, which he had wounded charged him 

 and thrust her horn right through the middle of his body. 



We spent several days vainly hunting bongo in the dense 

 mountain forests, with half a dozen 'Ndorobo. These were 

 true 'Ndorobo, who never cultivate the ground, living in 

 the deep forests on wild honey and game. It has been 

 said that they hunt but little, and only elephant and rhino; 

 but this is not correct as regards the 'Ndorobo in question. 

 They were all clad in short cloaks of the skin of the tree 

 hyrax; hyrax, monkey, bongo, and forest hog, the only game 

 of the dense, cool, wet forest, were all habitually killed by 

 them. They also occasionally killed rhino and buffalo, find- 

 ing the former, because it must occasionally be attacked in 

 the open, the more dangerous of the two; twice Delamere 

 had come across small communities of 'Ndorobo literally 

 starving because the strong man, the chief hunter, the 

 breadwinner, had been killed by a rhino which he had 

 attacked. The headman of those with us, who was named 

 Mel-el-lek, had himself been fearfully injured by a wounded 

 buffalo; and the father of another one who was with us 

 had been killed by baboons which had rallied to the aid of 

 one which he was trying to kill with his knobkerry. Usually 

 they did not venture to meddle with the lions which they 

 found on the edge of the forest, or with the leopards which 

 occasionally dwelt in the deep woods; but once Mel-el-lek 

 killed a leopard with a poisoned arrow from a tree, and 

 once a whole party of them attacked and killed with their 

 poisoned arrows a lion which had slain a cow buffalo near 

 the forest. On another occasion a lion in its turn killed 

 two of their hunters. In fact they were living just as 

 palaeolithic man lived in Europe, ages ago. 



Their arms were bows and arrows, the arrows being 

 carried in skin quivers, and the bows, which were strung 

 with zebra gut, being swathed in strips of hide. When rest- 

 ing they often stood on one leg, like storks. Their eyesight 

 was marvellous, and they were extremely skilful alike in 

 tracking and in seeing game. They threaded their way 



