I FIRST EXPEDITION FROM MOMBASA 15 



fellow quite affectionately as I did, than return the compliment; 

 so we always called each other Papa. 



Well, at last we did get elephant spoor. The first we 

 found was two days old, but it proved the elephants were in the 

 locality. Old Papa was quite moved with the sight, it was touch- 

 ing to see him. Holding up his hand toward the sky he prayed, 

 " Ngai (God), give us elephants," looking so earnest the while 

 one could not but sympathise with his feelings, even if I had 

 not been myself equally anxious for success. A little farther on 

 the old man was deeply affected by coming upon some drop- 

 pings, taking one of the dry loaves of vegetable fibre fondly in 

 his hands and breaking it open to see whether still moist inside, 

 so as to judge its age. The elephant is clearly the acme of the 

 Ndorobo's ideas of happiness. He would wish for unlimited 

 elephants, just as you or I might for p^ 10,000 a year. 

 Elephant's fat, in particular, seems to be the summit of their 

 desires. " Oh ! if I could but feed on elephant's fat," said my 

 old friend, " my wife would not know me when I went back, so 

 sleek and plump should I become." 



Where we first found this spoor was near a small spring 

 at which we had slept, at the base of a rocky koppie. Here 

 there was a deserted Ndorobo camp, where Papa's clan had 

 been about a month before. He showed me which had been 

 his hut. The huts were mere gipsy shelters. There was a 

 good-sized collection of them here. They did not seem to 

 have had much success in hunting, judging by the bones, 

 which were but few, about ; among them were those of a 

 giraffe. Several times in this country we came upon little 

 circular low screens of branches, close to what were, when 

 there was rain, small " pools in the parched ground " ; in these, 

 Papa told me, the Ndorobo hunters watched by night for 

 game.^ 



We were now taken on to a sandy stream bed, where our 



^ Farther north I saw nothing of this kind. Different clans, I found afterwards, 

 have different methods of killing game. 



