40 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



The next morning, though it was raining, I was up about 

 4 A.M., and by the time it was fairly hght we had packed up 

 and were ready to start. I left my headman and half-a-dozen 

 porters at this camp, to try and trade some ivory. I had 

 brought him chiefly for the purpose of trading a lot of goods 

 I had hampered myself with unwisely, and found both a great 

 nuisance and very little use. I was glad to leave him behind, 

 as I did not like the way he conducted my negotiations with 

 the natives. My guide of yesterday (who had overtaken us 

 on the way back) and another native accompanied us. I went 

 to the spring of the little spruit we had crossed the day before 

 (seeing no game on the way), where was a very pleasant, 

 convenient, and picturesque spot for my camp, under a grand 

 old low-crowned thorn tree with wide-spreading horizontal 

 boughs, which grew on a little rise above the stream. The 

 tree gave shade ; its great limbs were most handy to put 

 things on — one, too, formed a comfortable seat ; it lent itself 

 exactly to the making of a capital boma of suitable size for 

 us by simply having thorny branches packed all round under 

 the drooping extremity of its umbrella-shaped crown ; and 

 altogether the camp was one of the nicest I ever had, the 

 country around being fairly open, and the grass short and at 

 that time green. 



Leaving half my men in camp to build the " boma," I 

 went on with the rest to chop out the tusks of my three 

 elephants of the day before, intending also to go on to look 

 for others. On the way we met some natives from the kraals 

 near : they were most friendly in their greetings, hailing me 

 as a deliverer on account of my shooting the elephants, which 

 destroy their crops, and whose depredations they compare 

 to the Masai raids. This is the district called Mthara, the 

 tribe which fought with Chanler. Their experience of the 

 consequences of attacking the white man seemed to have 

 taught them to respect him, and to have inspired them with 

 a desire to make him their friend ; so they received me with 



