1 86 THE LAND OF THE LION 



"cut" it, is quite twenty-four hours old. They may be 

 found dozing under some shade trees only a few miles 

 in advance, or cooling their rugged flanks in the moist mud 

 of one of the numerous marshes. Or they may be resolutely 

 forging ahead at a pace just a little faster than that at which 

 your splendidly agile natives can follow, never to pause or 

 rest or feed, till some dearly loved haunt of theirs, known 

 only to themsleves, is at last won. 



Following up spoor, then, is often trying work, far harder 

 work than the hunter is called on to engage in in the pursuit of 

 any other animal. Of course, many men get many ele- 

 phants without following up the trail at all. They camp 

 near some favourite river crossing, or within reasonable dis- 

 tance of swampy feeding ground, and keep their natives 

 scouring the country for news. This is a good and, if you 

 persist long enough, a generally successful plan of pro- 

 ceeding. The natives of a district in which elephant are to 

 be found are nearly always ready to lend a hand, as the meat 

 is most welcome to them. But, as I have said elsewhere, 

 the sefari should be so constituted as to make communi- 

 cation with the shy wild man easy. Interpreters are as 

 important in its make-up as porters and cooks, and this 

 the inexperienced stranger is slow to realize. Here in this 

 very Nzoia country, only a few months ago, we missed ele- 

 phant, though we hunted pretty thoroughly for them for 

 three months all over it. It was a game of hide and seek. 

 The elephant would cross the river while we were at the 

 swamp, or spend the night in the swamp while we were 

 watching the river. We never won over the N'dorobo. 

 Had we succeeded in doing so, we could not well have 

 failed of success. We had no one among us who knew 

 either them or their language. When we met Nandi 

 N'dorobo, who are no use whatever, but are only the wan- 

 dering outcasts of blacklegs of the Nandi tribe (a flock own- 

 ing people, having some affinities to the Massai), and,. 



