242 ON SAFAEI 



easy stalking country, as we were requiring meat for the 

 camp. This was an ideal park-like country — a spacious 

 vale whose gentle slopes, decorated with clumps of bush, 

 forest-trees and open grass alternately, dipped away to 

 a gorge far below — the whole being backed by loftier 

 ranges beyond. While the "boys " cut up meat and I 

 smoked in the shade (watching a pair of wood -hoopoes 

 (Irrisor) and w^ondering at their climbing habit, which 

 belied the name) my new Somali hunter, Yama, came up 

 and said, " I see rhino." The beast was on the opposite 

 hillside, two miles away, standing on a rocky slope where 



TWO WEAVER-FIXCHES IN BLACK AND GOLD 



{H])2>hantornis textor, Pyronulana taha). 



grew scattered thorns. On one of these trees he was 

 breakfasting. Abandoning our two kongoni (except heads 

 and skins), we were soon ready ; but meantime " Kifaru," 

 having finished his meal, slowly turned, and still more 

 slowly strolled along the mountain-side. The thought 

 occurred to me, watching, that perchance he had performed 

 that selfsame walk on the morn of Waterloo. 



The descent into the intervening gorge and the 

 passage thereof were of the roughest — broken rocks all 

 intercepted with dongas and terrible brushwood ; and 

 ere we emerged the rhino had disappeared. In vain we 

 sought. To the right, in the direction he had gone, 

 a great ravine rent the hill. This was choked with 

 euphorbia, cactus and other humanly-impenetrable 



