194 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chai-. 



(with which title I dignified a cigar-box which contained the 

 {q.\^ simple drugs I carried with me in my expeditions), as I 

 had no more quinine with me. Notwithstanding this, however, 

 I went out to look for elephants down stream. We found 

 spoor of the night before at the junction of the valleys, and, 

 seeing no more lower down, returned and followed it up the 

 Barasaloi. There was only a small lot (probably a portion of 

 the big herd;, consisting of small cows and calves, and they 

 appeared to be travelling ; so I did not follow very far — 

 indeed, I was quite unequal to a long tramp — but returned to 

 camp about mid-day. 



The heat in this confined valley was exceedingly sultry 

 now, and trying to one when weak and out of health ; more- 

 over, I could not tackle the coarse fare of elephant and insipid 

 porridge, so that I was not able to throw off the attack so 

 quickl}' as I usually did a bout of familiar fever. Juma, too, 

 was away longer than I had expected ; but I got so far better, 

 even without the medicine, and so tired of two or three days 

 about camp, that I determined to move on down the valley 

 whether he came or not. Luckily, he turned up the evening 

 before I had arranged to start, so that I w^as able to take my 

 tent, which otherwise we should have been unable to carry. 

 He explained that the cause of his delay was, that, the night 

 he got to El Bogoi, a rhinoceros had charged the donkey 

 kraal, and he had waited to help hunt up and collect the 

 scattered animals. During his absence we had got out the 

 teeth of the five elephants I had killed the first day, near 

 where my camp was, and buried them. 



Then we moved on down the main valley. We travelled 

 on, following the river as much as possible, during the morning, 

 but our progress was but slow. The hills closed in more, and 

 got more rugged as we proceeded ; indeed the valle)- was now, 

 practically, a gorge in the Mathew^s range, and the tops of 

 the m.ountains towered up to a height of probably 3000 feet 

 above the river. But the floor of the valley was still flat and 



