OUR RACE TO PARADISE 27 



Though we didn't see him tackle any more leopards 

 bare-handed, as he had once before, we had proof 

 of what his powerful hands could do when we 

 followed him up to one of his bomas or game corrals 

 and saw him grab a full grown gereniik that had 

 drifted in during the night. The gerenuk is a gazelle 

 with a neck so long that it reminds one of a cross 

 between a gazelle and a giraffe and is now found only 

 in this part of British East Africa. This one was a 

 young buck with horns, and was standing in its pe- 

 culiar fashion on its hindlegs with its forefeet against 

 a tree browsing on the twigs or tender buds of the 

 branches. 



Two Meru boys who were with us watched the 

 bout between man and animal with astonished eyes. 

 On their return they described it all over the many- 

 etta. Now Rattray is more of a hero than ever. 

 It is one thing to shoot wild animals with guns or 

 spears and poisoned arrows and quite another 

 to tackle them with bare hands. They think he is the 

 bravest and strongest man in Africa; they are not so 

 far out of the way, either. 



After all we were glad to rest here a few days to 

 await Percival, so that we might explore the desert 

 north of the river for good trails to Lake Paradise, for 

 we had so far taken a route new to us from Isiolo up. 

 I had the boys build a few huts by the river on the 

 edge of the stream. With their knives they cut 



