CHAPTER VIII 



EXCURSIONS FROM EL BOGOI 



Comfortable quarters — Among old Ndorobo friends — A favourite elephant haunt 

 — Bag a giraffe — Lost in the bush — A deceitful guide — A grateful recompense 

 — Native jealousy — -Travelling elephants — A pair of lovers — Camp by the 

 Seya River — The Mathews range — Kill five elephants — A malarious climate — 

 Up the Barasaloi River — A marvellous sight — Abundance of elephants — An 

 exciting hunt — A narrow escape — A good day's work. 



I FELT in great spirits at getting back to my old, jolly camp 

 in this most interesting country, and very hopeful of success 

 among the elephants again this year. We had passed, on our 

 way, two or three pretty recent trails of herds, though we saw 

 no signs of feeding. The vegetation was, as usual here, quite 

 green, and the weather evidently very wet on the mountains. 

 My camp was much overgrown ; the shade tree, with its 

 canopy of creepers, more verdant than ever ; and the skeleton 

 of my old shed was covered with beans in pod, which had 

 sprung up where some, which we had stored in it, had been 

 spilt, and crept all over its framework. I soon had the place 

 cleaned up, and made things comfortable in this favourite 

 camp of mine ; and Shebane laid my table, decorated with a 

 bowl of flowers picked from the brooklet's banks, in the cool 

 and pleasant bower that formed my dining-room, I decided 

 to send the bulk of my caravan, under Abdulla, back to 

 Mthara (near Kenia) for more food, while I hunted the district ; 

 but they were to halt one day here, first, to rest their feet and 

 run up a new shed and make a boma for the donkeys, which 



