1 68 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



were to remain here. All hands were satisfied and as cheerful 

 as possible. During the afternoon an Ndorobo turned up and 

 told us where my old friends were camped. 



The first thing to do now was to get hold of my old 

 Ndorobo friends, so I sent Squareface, my gun-bearer and 

 interpreter, to hunt them up, while the shed was building for 

 storing my goods. It being very nearly completed, the second 

 day I sent off Abdulla, with most of the men (keeping only 

 twelve with me), for Mthara, to buy and bring on as much 

 food as they could carry. I also hoped he might manage to 

 buy a few more donkeys, to replace those that had died ; for I 

 had only fifteen left now, the last of the sick ones having just 

 succumbed. I had hoped that this one would have recovered, 

 but now every one that had showed symptoms of being " fly- 

 stuck " was dead. I calculated that Abdulla could not get 

 back here under a month, and I meant to employ my time in 

 hunting during his absence. 



The day the caravan started, Squareface returned with 

 Lorgete, one of my Ndorobo friends, but Lesiat (the most 

 important one) did not come, his camp being in another 

 direction, Lorgete said that he and his people were, as 

 usual, starving, and he had not even any honey to bring 

 me. He had killed no elephants since I was here, though 

 Lesiat, he informed me, had slain two ; but he said that there 

 was a herd of bulls still about. I arranged with him that I 

 would meet him the day but one after, at one of my old hunting- 

 camps, which was in the direction in which he said the elephants 

 were, and that in the meantime he was to get precise news of 

 their present whereabouts. So, after finishing the thatching of 

 the shed and storing my goods in it, I moved on there, leaving 

 two or three men in charge of the stores and donkeys. 



After pitching camp in the same spot whence I had done 

 some hunting the year before, I took a stroll in the afternoon 

 in the hopes of seeing giraffe. But though I searched in what 

 had been a favourite haunt the year before, they seemed to 



