AFTER ELEPHANT AT BARINGO 71 



though he had just received two cordite-driven bullets 

 in his head, he instantly, within fifteen seconds, repeated 

 his charo-e a second time, and after all, with some seven 

 balls in his head, travelled upwards of twenty miles 

 almost without stopping. 



Subsequently Archer wrote me that, a fortnight 

 later, during his absence on duty, an immense bull- 

 elephant, carrying tusks of 90 -lbs. apiece, had come 

 down to the water at Magi-Moto and had died there ! 

 It was not, of course, proved that this was our elephant, 

 though the probability amounted to no less than a 

 moral certainty. Unluckily, owing to Archer's absence, 

 the ivory disappeared, falling into the hands of some 

 Swahili traders. 



The foregoing serves incidentally to show how easy 

 it is for an elephant — or for a herd of elephants, 

 enormous as is their bulk — to exist unseen ; as easy as 

 for a rabbit at home, so dense and far-spreading is the 

 tropical jungle ! Another illustration of this fell within 

 my own knowledge. Two Englishmen had gone snipe- 

 shooting on a marsh bordered by comparatively narrow 

 belts of heavy reed. For some hours they had been 

 shooting away merrily, when from these reeds hard by 

 there emerged a whole herd of elephants quietly moving 

 off in search of a less noisy siesta. 



A point that struck me during our sojourn at 

 Njemps was the inveterate laziness of the native 

 savages. Each morning, shortly after dawn, groups of 

 them assembled at certain spots, each man bringing 

 a " cracket," or low three-legged stool, whereon he 

 squatted, his spear stuck in the ground within arm's- 

 length ; there they sat the livelong day, neither talking, 

 working nor even, apparently, thinking — simply idling 

 away the hours and the days. Those groups which 

 squatted thus around our tents might perhaps be 

 presumed to be in consultation with H.M.'s representa- 

 tive ; but all over the village sat other groups similarly 

 " employed. ' The Njemusi are stated to be a degenerate 

 offshoot of the Masai — " degenerate " because they affect 



