CHAPTER IV 



THE NDOROBO COUNTRY 



Set out for Ndorobo country — Savage life — Camp at El Bogoi — Head waters of 

 ^Mackenzie River — A tribal raid — A disagreeable camp — Fishing for mineral — 

 Limestone springs — Bag two elands — Nearing Lorogi Mountains — Glimpse of 

 elephants — A thunderstorm — A handsome zebra — Start for Mount Nyiro — A 

 roundabout course — A fruitless journey — Return to El Bogoi. 



It was not, then, till the 3rd of July that I started once more 

 from Laiju for a more extended hunting trip into the region 

 to the northward, commonly called the Ndorobo country, but 

 which is practically uninhabited, in the ordinary sense of the 

 word, for hundreds of miles ; for the Ndorobos are only thinly 

 scattered in small communities, leading the life of pure savages 

 — that is they neither cultivate nor own stock, but live on what 

 they can pick up in the bush. Before I went among these 

 people I had always supposed, from what I had heard and 

 read about them, that they were all skilful hunters, living solely 

 on game. I have found, however, that this is by no means 

 the case, at least in the region of which I am writing. The 

 majority of them depend almost solely on honey and wild 

 fruit, roots, berries, etc., for their existence ; and, as may be 

 supposed in a country to which nature has been by no means 

 bountiful in edible products, they are usually in a state of semi- 

 starvation ; indeed it is a puzzle to me how they manage to 

 live at all. It is certainly not a country I should care to be 

 turned out to graze in after the manner of our first parents in 



