HUNTING ELEPHANT AND RIDING LION 163 



swollen that their passage is often impossible. Even in 

 dry weather the easy crossings have to be carefully sought 

 out. In such cases no hunter can do better than keep his 

 sefari on the higher ridges, taking, so far as possible, the 

 direction he wants, and attempt no crossing till he comes 

 on an old elephant trail. Once one is found a passage 

 can be made. Till one is found much time is apt to be 

 lost in looking it out. Excepting the Congo country, 

 which is closed to all hunters at present, save only to such 

 as can, through Belgian court favour, secure a permit, 

 no district in Africa holds probably as many elephants. 

 The plateau lies between two great fastnesses of theirs 

 the Elgao escarpment on the east and Elgon on the west. 

 In either of these they are secure from all approach, unless 

 it be the stealthy stalking of some unusually adventurous 

 N'dorobo.* A few elephants are annually killed in this 

 way with poisoned harpoons, but they are very few indeed. 

 For the white hunters to attempt them in such cover is 

 dangerous and useless. A few hours' struggle with its 

 underbrush would quickly convince the most skeptical 

 on this point. The great tree trunks break up the air 

 currents, and a steady stalking breeze you never get in the 

 deep forest, while apart from that, a silent approach is 

 out of the question (at least in this forest). But after the 

 rains the great beasts seem to have a craving for light and 

 air, and the fresher fodder that has sprung up on the green 

 veldt, and covered the innumerable thorn trees growing all 

 over it. In little bands and great, they stream down from 

 the high hills, out over the sunny plain. Sometimes a hun- 

 dred or more may be seen together cows, smaller bulls, 



* N'dorobo literally means wild man. The term is applied to any native who, leaving the tribe for 

 a time, or for good, takes to hunting. There are Lumbwa, Nandi, Kikuyu, Massai N'dorobo. But 

 the Pukka N'dorobo are a people apart, with districts and language and customs of their own. Their 

 chief home and country lies to east of the Nzoia plateau and north of Charangang Mountain. Here, 

 amid impenetrable woods and mountains they leave their women and children when they go hunting on 

 the plain. Here too they raise their scanty crops of whimby etc., and here are their only kraals. Other 

 large settlements of N'dorobo, Newman speaks of. These live to east and west of Kenia. They are 

 the same people. 



