68 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



great numbers of guinea fowl and large francolin along the 

 stream. 



At daybreak next morning a lion was roaring a little 

 distance off, and as soon as it was light I went to look for him, 

 as he was still to be heard every now and then ; but he 

 probably heard me coming over the stones, for I saw him 

 slinking away while yet a great way off. Then leaving most 

 of the men where we had slept, we started and followed the 

 stream down past another swamp, larger than the first, and on 

 to a third and smaller one. Here we found fresh elephant 

 spoor, a few cows having been there during the night. Having 

 looked all round the swamp (the last of the series) and finding 

 no other spoor, we followed this. The guides now said they 

 were hungry and thirsty ; so, as I was rather disgusted with 

 them for refusing good venison and had nothing else to give 

 them, I told them they had better go home. This they did. 

 The spoor now led us towards more bushy country. On the 

 way we saw quantities of game. Looking across one broad 

 open flat I saw a herd of giraffe (of which I counted forty-five) 

 pass across one end, while in another part were some half-dozen 

 rhino dotted about. Zebra and Grant's gazelle were in numbers 

 everywhere, and in the opposite direction several ostriches and 

 a few oryx. It was a wonderful and almost fabulous sight, 

 such as " one reads about but very seldom sees." One herd of 

 zebras, of mixed species, we watched pass within less than 

 thirty yards of us while we stood concealed. 



Persevering on the spoor, we came, after some considerable 

 time, to country the surface of which was nothing but a mass of 

 fragments of broken-up black lava. Strange to say, though 

 many patches of this frightful ground, composed of hard lumps 

 of rock without a suspicion of soil, were quite bare, where there 

 were shrubs or grass the vegetation was much greener than else- 

 where. Here we found many signs of elephants having fed 

 yesterday, and soon after were cheered with the sight of freshly- 

 broken and chewed bits of bark, wood, etc., still wet, also 



