68 GAME ON THE COAST AND ITS DEPREDATIONS 
Amongst wantonly destructive animals may be enumer- 
ated : — 
Pigs, porcupines and baboons, and many varieties of smaller 
monkeys. 
There exist also packs of wild dogs which render good 
service to planters and natives by pursuing and destroying 
numbers of the smaller antelope. 
Of the Pachyderms, elephants are found in considerable 
numbers between Kilifi creek and the Tana. In the dry 
season they retreat into the hinterland, but as soon as rain 
begins to fall they appear in numbers, especially at Ntondia 
Roka and Mambrui. So careless are they of human presence 
that in 1909 at the latter village a herd was seen in broad day- 
light feeding in a cocoanut shamba within 200 yards of the 
place. The inhabitants turned out in force to witness this 
extraordinary sight. 
So far as is known at present there are very few good 
tuskers among them, but from tusks I have lately seen at the 
District Office, Malindi — weighing nearly 100 lb. each — I 
gather that there must have been huge beasts in the district 
some time ago. Possibly the various tribes have killed off 
the bigger ones, for in the dense bush there live the Wasania, 
a hunting tribe pure and simple like the Dorobo. 
Hippopotami are common in all the rivers and big swamps. 
The writer remembers in 1906 seeing two in the upper reaches 
of Kilifi creek, but they are not common in that part. In the 
Sabaki river and the swamps bordering it on either side 
numbers of these beasts are always to be found. They 
travel long distances in the night at times, and crops at a 
distance of twelve miles from their haunts are not safe. 
The coast lion is a maneless one, and smaller than his brother 
of the highlands. For all that he is, if anything, more savage, 
and in his dealings with defenceless animals partakes more 
of the nature of a tiger or leopard than of the character usually 
ascribed to the King of Beasts. I have lively recollections 
of the wanton destruction caused in 1906 by two lions at 
Nabudi. They walked almost into the heart of the village one 
night, entered a goatpen and killed 59 sheep and goats. The 
following night they killed a baker’s dozen in a shamba two 
