12 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



impressively. I then made their hearts white with presents, 

 as their bodies with calico, and Baikenda and I became, as he 

 put it, as if born of one mother, emphasising the relationship 

 with expressive pantomime b\- squeezing suggestively his 

 shrivelled old breast with his hand. 



It is a fertile district, and food was to be had in fair 

 abundance and considerable variety. Luscious bananas were 

 plentiful and fine yams cheap and good. I\Iy cook used to 

 make me what he called " smash-im-up " of the latter — a capital 

 substitute for mashed potatoes : indeed, as regards vegetable 

 products, I lived better while here than I ever did again, and 

 often, when restricted for months and months together to 

 porridge and cakes of coarse dry meal in the barren country 

 farther north, did I think of those delicious bananas. 



Intending to make this my headquarters for a while, and 

 finding Chanler's boma too straggling to be a secure depot in 

 which to leave my goods in charge of a few men (though I 

 used it as a camp myself), I spent some time in building a 

 strong little stockade for this purpose. Various circumstances, 

 into the details of which it is not necessary to enter, prevented 

 my making any extended hunting trip for a much longer time 

 than I had intended to delay here. I was able to obtain meat 

 easily enough, as game of one sort or another was generally 

 to be found within a long walk of my camp — waterbuck 

 and zebra being the most numerous — and the young natives 

 were always pleased to accompany me, being keen for meat, 

 though they had a curious prejudice against letting their 

 womenkind see them with any. 



Of my first small excursion in quest of elephants — although 

 unsuccessful in that I did not get a sight of any — a short account 

 may not be uninteresting, since I saw a good deal of other game, 

 and had a certain amount of sport ; but elephant-hunting being 

 the main object of my expedition — as it is to be the principal 

 subject of this book — I will not dwell too much upon it. It 

 occupied little more than a fortnight, and the farthest point I 



