80 THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE RUDOLF 



told liome, and the elephant came down with such a crash that 

 his left tusk was broken to pieces. It turned out that the first 

 shot had struck too far behind the temples. 



Unfortunately the flesh of the elephant was of little use for 

 feeding our people, as all Mrima and true Zanzibaris dislike it. 

 Our Wasangu men were the least particular in the matter of food, 

 and would even eat half-putrid meat, and next to them came 

 the Wanyamwezi and the Manyema. They all rushed eagerly 

 at the elephant meat, and later the Zanzibari 'took some of it 

 too, but quite a third of our men held out to the very end of the 

 journey against touching the flesh of elephants, declaring that 

 nothing Ijut starvation w^ould make them swallow it. Whilst 

 those who would eat it now had their fill, the rest of the people 

 became thinner and thinner as the daily rations given out by 

 Qualla decreased in amount. Every week of the delay here 

 the careful chief of our caravan stuck yet another finger into 

 the bowl with which he measured out the meal, and in the end 

 he cut a piece as broad as a finger off the edge of the bowl, 

 which, even before that, only held half a ration. This stratagem 

 for the good of the whole community was entirely his own idea. 



Under the guidance of Lembasso, whose only clothing was 

 his ebony-black skin and only possession an inferior spear, we 

 left the dreary valley in which we had lingered for five days, to 

 resume our wanderings. We parted on the best of terms with 

 the natives, the poor devils, to our great astonishment, present- 

 ing us the last thing with two sheep and a goat. The thought 

 that in a few days we should reach the mysterious Basso Xarok 

 filled us with the greatest satisfaction. First we skirted along 

 the l^ase of Mount Nyiro in a westerly, then in a northerly 

 direction, arriving at noon in a rather broader and less shut-in 

 valley than the one we had left, where we camped. The district 

 was extremely interesting. Close to us on the right rose up 

 the picturesquely rugged mountain slopes, whilst on the west 



