TO THE UASIN GISHU 425 



apple. Each village had a grove of cocoanut palms, and 

 Kermit found the cool cocoanut milk delicious after the 

 return from a long day's hunting. 



Each morning he was off before daylight, and rarely 

 returned until after nightfall; and tired though he was he 

 enjoyed to the full the walks campward in the bright moon- 

 light among the palm groves beside the rushing streams, 

 while the cicadas cried like katydids at home. The grass 

 was long. The weather was very hot, and almost every 

 day there were drenching thunder-storms, and the dews 

 were exceedingly heavy, so that Kermit was wet almost all 

 the time, although he kept in first-rate health. There were 

 not many sable and they were shy. About nine or ten o'clock 

 they would stop feeding, and leave their pasture grounds of 

 long grass, taking refuge in some grove of trees and thick 

 bushes, not coming out again until nearly five o'clock. 



On the second day's hunting Juma spied a little band 

 of sable just entering a grove. A long and careful stalk 

 brought the hunters to the grove, but after reaching it they 

 at first saw nothing of the game. Then Kermit caught a 

 glimpse of a head, fired, and brought down the beast in 

 its tracks. It proved to be a bull, just changing from the 

 red to the black coat; the horns were fair in this northern 

 form they never reach the length of those borne by the 

 sable bulls of South Africa. He also killed a cow, not fully 

 grown. He therefore still needed a full-grown cow, which 

 he obtained three days later; this animal when wounded 

 was very savage, and tried to charge. 



We now went to Nairobi, where Cuninghame, Tarlton, 

 and the three naturalists were already preparing for the 

 Uganda trip and shipping the stuff hitherto collected. 

 Working like beavers we got everything ready -including 

 additions to the Pigskin Library, which included, among 

 others, Cervantes, Goethe's "Faust," Moliere, Pascal, 

 Montaigne, St. Simon, Darwin's "Voyage of the Beagle," 

 and Huxley's "Essays" and on December i8th started for 

 Lake Victoria Nyanza. 



