i8 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



is about the limit of the species ; there are none south of the 

 Tana nor farther up the river on this side. 



The men (I had about a dozen with me) soon piled all the 

 meat on to the loads they were already carrying, and we went 

 on to the stream. This one, just at the part where we struck 

 it, flows through lovely open meadows of soft green grass with 

 only scattered trees. The formation here is limestone, generally 

 close to the surface, and where it is so the grass grows short 

 and soft ; and there having been plenty of rain that season it 

 was then beautifully green. As we came out of the bush to 

 the edge of the open a herd of oryx were standing in the 

 meadow ; and as I had no meat for myself (besides which I 

 wanted oryx heads) I shot one, which proved a nice fat heifer. 

 We camped close by on the stream, within a hundred yards or 

 so of the antelope. A delightful and most picturesque spot it 

 was, with the delicious brook of clear, cold water — so especially 

 precious in Equatorial Africa — rushing past. My tent was 

 pitched under a spreading tree on its banks and but little 

 above its surface, for it had hardly any bed and the gently 

 sloping lawn came right down to the water. The men caught 

 quantities of fish, and one kind — a sort of small perch — proved 

 a very sweet little fellow when fried fresh out of the water. 

 On some of these streams grows a plant which I take to be a 

 kind of lily, of which the root when thoroughly boiled is a 

 very good vegetable and a welcome addition to one's menu in 

 the bush. 



Next morning we started to move on to the next stream, 

 where I knew there was abundance of game ; and as the 

 " boma " at Laiju could from there be reached in one good 

 day, it would be a suitable locality in which to shoot meat for 

 the purpose of being carried in. But on the way, w^hile it was 

 yet early, as we were traversing the comparatively open bush 

 that covers most of this particular part (though in places are 

 dense thickets of considerable extent) of the nearly level 

 country, we came suddenly in sight of a rhinoceros standing a 



