ELMENTEITA IN SEPTEMBER 129 



decided to fall back upou Eburu, and next morning we 

 struck and retraced our steps along the lake-shore, where 

 I had just shot a one-horned impala ; when we descried 

 a single " Aoul " far out on the open plain. He proved 

 hopelessly wild, and after infinite manoeuvres, all in 

 vain, we saw him join two others of his kind, when all 

 three made right aw^ay down-wind behind us. I have 

 called these animals " Aoul " merely for distinction, and 

 because it was Elmi's name for them, though what they 

 actually were is not proven. They were conspicuously 

 distinct from anything else I saw in East Africa. I 

 searched the same ground again on my second expedition 

 (in February 1906), but without seeing a sign of the 

 aoul. 



A few miles to the eastward, beyond and amidst 

 some broken rocky ridges, we fell in with one of those 

 immense ao-o-reo-ations of wild o-ame that it has been my 

 good fortune to meet with on various occasions in this 

 land. Gazelles in vast numbers (mostly does and small 

 bucks) thronged the foreground — literally colouring the 

 landscape — while a couple of elands, looking gigantic 

 among such small fry, stood in their midst. Beyond 

 were numberless troops of zebra, hartebeests, and more 

 elands,^ the whole assemblage being sprinkled with wart- 

 hogs and ostriches I In one long straggling group I 

 counted over 100 of these oiant birds. 



The hartebeests were inaccessible ; but by aid of 

 some broken ridges, I got well in to three separate 

 groups of elands — about 100 in all — and enjoyed the 

 sight at close quarters ; all, however, were females or 

 young beasts, not a single heavy old bull among them. 

 Jackals trotted about and — a curious addition — -wild 

 geese {clienalopex) fed on the driest plain. 



I secured here two of the finest granti bucks that we 

 had then obtained : the first in company with half-a- 

 dozen does, while the second had a harem of thirty-four. 



1 Note that we had seen no elands in this district sisweeksbefore 

 — in July — except a single young beast on the Enderit River. Now 

 was there a sign of them when I returned here later, in February. 



K 



