IX EXCURS/OiXS FROM EL BOGOI 195 



of some width, and was covered, for the most part, with dense, 

 low scrub of a kind peculiar to salt swampy ground. It is 

 composed of a very green, small-leaved shrub, which forms the 

 densest thickets, utterly impenetrable for anything but an 

 elephant, its branches, though thornless, being intertwined and 

 matted together, and presenting a compact, green, wall-like 

 barrier. Even the elephant paths are passable only with 

 difficulty ; for the}' are often mere tunnels, and everywhere 

 stiff, springy branches stick out across them and encumber the 

 ground, tripping one up and making locomotion most arduous 

 and uncomfortable. Elephants do not appear to feed on this 

 kind of bush, and only use these jungles as a retreat when 

 alarmed. We found no fresh spoor, nor even much old ; nor 

 was there any bush of the kind likely to harbour elephants 

 under ordinary circumstances. Indeed the country seemed so 

 unpromising, that about noon, feeling fatigued even with this 

 short march, I decided to camp and send Squareface on ahead 

 to spy out the land before going farther myself; for it seemed 

 useless to push on, with no prospect of finding elephants, while 

 we were, perhaps, leaving them behind us. I was so much out 

 of health that I could not shoot a bit, and had missed two 

 Waller's gazelle during the morning. A few of these were all 

 the game we had seen, besides " paa " (Kirk's antelope), which 

 were plentiful. 



As the heat was excessive, I was anxious to find a shady 

 spot to camp in, and, noticing a thick clump of trees and bushes 

 close above the river-bank, I crept in, with my Ndorobo guide, 

 to examine it, with a view to camping inside. While we stood 

 surveying this nice cool retreat, my companion spied a rhino 

 lying asleep close by — it having chosen the same pleasant 

 shade to rest in that had attracted us. As the meat would be 

 most useful to us and enable us to economise our small supply 

 of meal, and as the beast was, as it were, delivered into our 

 hands, so opportunely, on the very spot where we intended 

 pitching our camp, I shot it at once, giving it two solid bullets 



