102 ON SAFARI 



exchange for coloured beads and iron wire. Still, one is 

 always in the main dependent on one's own stores, and 

 the following entry in the diar}^ shows the straits we 

 had reached at this date : " Milk has given out, and 

 coffee also ; soups did so weeks ago. There is only one 

 candle left, and one tin of biscuits — nothing else. We 

 now live on venison and rice, drink raw tea, and go to 

 bed in the dark." 



Early in September we left the hospitable homa of 

 Baringo, that outlying frontier-post of Empire where a 

 single Britisher, by means of a wattle-and-daub house, 

 a few mud huts, seventy native soldiers, and some coils 

 of barbed wire, maintains control and moral supremacy 

 over swarming savage tribes. Marching southward, on 

 the third evening w^e encamped on the Molo River, 

 beneath the broadest-spreading mimosa I ever saw. 

 The spot, I believe, is called Ya-Nabanda. Here w^e 

 intended to halt a couple of days to secure a few more 

 specimens of the large Jackson's hartebeest. I had 

 succeeded in shooting two bulls, carrying heads of 22 

 and 20 1 ins. respectively, and on the second evening 



W brought in even a finer head of 22 j ins., yet 



withal he was strangely dispirited and despondent. 



On comjDaring experiences, it turned out that a 

 curious coincidence had befallen. We had both that 

 day at last fallen in with eland, animals we had already 

 abandoned hope of seeing. In my own case it was a 

 single eland in company with zebras and small harte- 

 beests. Even at the distant view I saw at once by the 

 square-built stern and heavily-tufted tail, swishing at 

 the flies on its flanks, that this was a new animal to me. 

 On a nearer approach I recognised it as an eland cow, 

 carrying long but poor horns. I crept within 100 yards 

 of the group, and thoroughly enjoyed the scene. But a 

 cow eland was not available game, and I shot a w^ater- 

 buck bull instead. 



Meanwhile, to the east of the river W had fallen 



in with a herd of no less than fifty elands, but only 

 including one big heavy bull. This splendid beast he 



