SPORT ON THE GUASO MARU 



the eyes of one of these warriors happened to fall upon the object 

 of my excited discourse. He emitted a yell of terror, and, 

 followed by his two companions, bolted for fifty yards. These 

 natives were so upset by the sight of this snake that they re- 

 fused to cross the stream until we reached the next path through 

 the foliage, half a mile beyond. Contrary to the stories about 

 tropical jungles, during our wanderings in Africa I saw only two 

 snakes beside this one. One of these was a small green tree- 

 snake which I grasped in my hand for a branch in an elephant- 

 hunt on the slopes of Mount Kenia. The other was a large 

 torpid python which Fuguet and I almost walked into during a 

 lion -hunt along the Thika River. We shot this last snake, 

 which measured twelve feet in length, and had recently crushed 

 and swallowed a duikerbuck. In all three cases the natives 

 accompanying us had shown great fright, due, I believe, to the 

 fact that they seldom see these reptiles. 



Shortly after crossing this stream I spied a Grevy's zebra walk- 

 ing toward us, and when it stopped between the tree-trunks, one 

 hundred and fifty yards distant, to stare at us, I crippled it 

 in the shoulder at the first shot. It hobbled away, and man- 

 aged to keep just beyond range until approaching darkness 

 obliged us to abandon the chase and doubtless leave it for the 

 hyenas. 



Toward evening Fuguet returned to camp from a long trip 

 down the bank of the Guaso Nyiro, reporting a rough and almost 

 impassable lava formation, so we decided to abandon our efforts 

 in that direction. He had seen large quantities of game, mostly 

 oryx, giraffe, and zebra, and had shot a fair bull waterbuck and 

 a good gerenuk. We decided to move over to our former camp, 

 on the Guaso Maru, in order to take toll out of a small herd 

 of Grevy's zebra which ranged in the locality. We had not dis- 

 turbed this herd, as we had expected to find these zebra in greater 

 quantities farther up the Guaso Nyiro; but the presence of so 

 many goats and sheep along the river had made us sceptical of 



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