64 NOTES ON THE FAUNA OF BARINGO DISTRICT 
are to be seen, and occasionally a solitary rhino or buffalo 
may be heard crashing through the bush. It is probable, too, 
that Greater and Lesser Kudu and even Bongo are to be found ; 
and I have no doubt that, were the traveller to proceed north- 
wards across the Weiwei and down on to the Lower Kerio 
into practically unknown and uninhabited country, he might 
come upon game in very considerable quantities. 
The greatest glory, however, of this region was the magni- 
ficent herds of elephant that throughout the year were to be 
found roaming over it. 
I should be afraid to say how many elephants once lived 
in this bush, but I should think that a thousand head would 
not be a very exaggerated estimate. 
I myself have on two occasions met with a great herd 
that covered three or four square miles of country. We 
viewed this herd from the top of a tree, and the whole country 
seemed to be enveloped in one vast cloud of dust. The 
following day we passed through the centre of the herd ; 
and the great beasts getting our wind first formed up into 
groups and then presently stampeded. Battalion after 
battalion of cows and young bulls first moved off, and then 
file after file of old bulls, many of them carrying enormous 
tusks, crushed past us into the bush. It would be no 
exaggeration, I think, to say that we saw fully three hundred 
elephants that day. 
Contrary to our expectations not a single beast made 
any attempt to charge, although all round us was alive with 
elephants, and they kept bearing down on us from all points 
of the compass. Finally, at the very end of the herd, long 
after all the rest had fled, came one immense tusker, making 
his way in a slow leisurely fashion, apparently utterly ignorant 
of the smallest danger threatening him. 
The Suk hills are a continuation of the Elgeyo escarpment. 
The inhabitants are for the most part very poor, and the 
further northwards one proceeds the poorer they become. 
The only cultivation known to them is that of millet and 
eleusine grain, and scarcely a season passes without bringing 
with it at any rate a partial failure of the crops. They are 
thus driven to seek their living in the forest, and many of them 
