IX EXCURSIONS FROM EL BOGOI 199 



him the next day to look for them, while the other men went 

 again to bring in the smaller ivory, which had been left the 

 day before. But the spoor proved to be two days old, and it 

 returned up the valley again : he had apparently mistaken 

 some of it for fresh, in the dark, so our search was fruitless. 

 Fortunately I had now recovered my health and was beginning 

 to feel quite my old springiness ; and a great blessing it was 

 to feel well and strong and to enjoy one's grub once more. I 

 had been beginning to fear ill health would spoil my trip, and 

 so was the more pleased to find I was getting back to my old 

 form again. My cook, good old Feruzi, had comforted me 

 considerably by concocting a sort of thin gruel for me in place 

 of the everlasting tea, of which one gets so particularly sick 

 when' suffering from fever, and which it is, I think, by no 

 means wholesome to be continually drinking. 



I was getting impatient to move now, so was very glad 

 when, the following evening, the men I had sent to El Bogoi 

 turned up with two more donkeys and my spring balance. 

 Except when in real need of rest, hanging about camp does 

 not suit me at all, especially in so warm a spot as this was ; 

 for, paradoxical as it may sound, excessive heat is far more 

 trying when you are doing nothing than while marching or 

 hunting. So I set to work at once to pack up the loads, 

 which I could not do satisfactorily till the arrival of the scale 

 enabled them to be adjusted evenly ; and in the morning we 

 started with all our ivory, which was just as much as we could 

 carry, to trek back towards El Bogoi. The party of Ndorobos 

 who had been here, too, were now ready to return to their own 

 district near the Lorogi, and trekked at the same time, all 

 laden with as much dried meat as they could stagger under. 

 My plan was to take some of them with me to hunt in the 

 Lorogi Mountains (after depositing my ivory at my main 

 camp), where I hoped to find a herd of old bulls. 



It took some time to tie up the donkey-loads, so that it 

 was about nine o'clock, on the 12th of September, before we 



