70 ON SAFARI 



huge morass, a league in diameter, choked with reeds 

 and flags, and with water three to four feet deep — 

 possibly far more — and swarming with leeches. To 

 explore this Archer sent men back to the lake to carry 

 canoes hither, twenty miles, and we offered a reward of 

 two cows for the recovery of the ivory. 



There ends, so far as our knowledge goes, the storj^ 

 of our elephant. It seemed certain that the sick beast 

 would die wherever he took final refuge, and this con- 

 viction was confirmed by a letter sent me a few days 

 later : " The latest news of your elephant is that he was 

 seen, very sick, making for Magi-Moto or the swamp 

 beyond. The natives are still on his spoor, so I trust 

 you will have the satisfaction of receiving the ivory on 

 5^our return here." Yet no monster tusks were ever 

 sent in to the fort at Baringo. Whether the Njemusi 

 really failed to find the beast, or whether they recovered 

 him and said nothing, we could not be certain. But, 

 sad to tell, these primitive savages are already beginning 

 to understand differences in value, and to distino-uish 

 between a pair of tusks worth, perhaps, £80 to £100 

 sterling, and a couple of cows only worth as many 

 rupees. 



The sensation of failure, after the prolonged excite- 

 ment, risk and labour was sickening enough ; twice we 

 had been within less than ten yards of one of the grand- 

 est beasts in all Africa, and had failed to secure him ; 

 5^et we could not but feel thankful that we had come 

 out of it unharmed. Both those terrible charges had 

 been full of mischief and malice, and we had only 

 escaped, in either case, through a mere lucky flaw or 

 slant in the wind. My impression was that the danger 

 is more real with elephant (and, in minor degree, with 

 rhino) than with lion. For the big carnivora in- 

 variably give one the first chance, and that ought, in 

 their case, with modern weapons and short range, to be 

 decisive ; whereas this elephant charged at once, with 

 full intent to kill, before we had molested him in the 

 smallest degree, beyond getting in his wind. Moreover, 



