82 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chai>. 



quite dry), at a convenient distance from the last stream. I 

 found afterwards that by a more direct route this place may be 

 reached on the second day. Here I found the skull of a 

 greater koodoo, an antelope which must be exceedingly scarce 

 in this part of Africa, as I had never yet come across one. 

 While here two or three young Embe natives came to get 

 water to drink. I had one brought to camp, and questioned 

 him as to where they had been, as their own district is a 

 considerable distance away. He said a large party of them 

 had been to make a raid on the Ndorobos of Lorian but had 

 failed to find them. These Embe people are a cowardly, but 

 cruel race ; they are afraid to attack any other tribe, so harry 

 the unfortunate Ndorobos. I told him what I thought about 

 it, and put him in rather a fright ; and old " Papa " (who was 

 with me as on a former trip), when he heard that his relatives 

 were to have been attacked, immediately drew out of his 

 quiver, with a savage look, his two most villainous-looking 

 arrows. The wretched fellow was divided in his mind between 

 fear and thirst ; fidgeting, as if wanting to run away, and 

 drinking alternately, until I reassured him by bursting out 

 laughing at " Papa's " vengeful expression and let him go about 

 his business with advice to let the Ndorobos alone. In passing 

 round the end of the Jambeni Range the baobabs are left 

 behind. From the coast up their bloated trunks have been a 

 common feature, but here the last are seen. 



The next camping place is by a very perfect crater. Of 

 this I wrote in my diary — " This is a curious place, but a 

 disagreeable camp. The crater is large and deep. There is a 

 small lake at the bottom whose shallow water is very strongly 

 impregnated with some mineral (natron .'') smelling and tasting 

 of ammonia. It is in large white crystals. There were crowds 

 of Embe women fishing quantities of this substance up from 

 the bottom of the shallow water and carrying it up the steep 

 path in huge loads on their backs. I lifted one. It weighed 

 not a bit less, I will undertake to say, than a hundred pounds. 



