1 64 THE LAND OF THE LION 



and totos, growing and tiny, the great tuskers generally 

 keeping to themselves. 



Then is the time when the hunter may take his toll. 

 They are far from any safe retreating place, and the nature 

 of the country makes approach comparatively easy. Jn a 

 few years at most they may be expected to learn caution, 

 and to descend less frequently or in fewer numbers to their 

 loved pleasure ground. But they have been hunted so 

 little here as yet that for some time to come they are more 

 likely to be met with near the Nzoia River, than in any 

 other part of British East Africa. 



Great tusks, too, these Elgon elephants sometimes carry, 

 not so large, it is true, as their cousins of Uganda, where 

 teeth of two hundred pound the pair are quite common, but 

 still very much larger than those of elephants found in any 

 other part of the country. My present companion and 

 hunter, Mr. A. C. Hoey, has been at the death of several 

 of these ancient bulls one pair, records, I think, for the 

 Protectorate, weighed 137 and 128 pounds respectively. 



No hunting is as uncertain as elephant hunting. They 

 are here to-day, quite fifty miles off to-morrow. They 

 stay for days, or even weeks in a country where almost 

 any greenhorn can shoot them, or they slip silently, like 

 great noiselessly moving ghosts, by your tent fires in the 

 night, and you couldn't persuade yourself of the reality 

 of their visit, did you not see, in the morning, the broadly 

 beaten track. 



You hastily rally your gunbearers, fill your saddle 

 bags and rush off on the spoor. Do not be in so great a 

 hurry that you cut short your breakfast, or fail to fill your 

 water bottle. In all likelihood you are in for a wearying 

 day. Put an extra saddle blanket on your mule or pony. 

 The nights are chilly, and you may need it before you see 

 camp again. There is no experience the hunter meets with, 

 in Africa, no pursuit of any of its game, that tries him as 



