TRACKS OF ELEPHANTS 
97 
called Gonsali. I hoped that we had at length got rid of 
the villages for some time to come. I must not forget to 
mention a very dangerous practical joke played on villagers 
by my men. When approaching a ‘ woolidge/ and seeing 
some Somalis quietly watching their flocks and herds, they 
would rush at them, shouting at the top of their voices ; 
they would then kneel down and point their rifles at them, 
when the villagers would all run away as hard as they could 
go, leaving all their sheep, cattle, and camels to our tender 
mercies, believing us to be a raiding-party of the dreaded 
Abyssinians. As I feared the villagers might make it very 
warm for us by mistake some day, I soon put a stop to this 
nonsense. 
That evening we saw the first spoor of an elephant, but 
several days old. Here we decided to remain before pro- 
ceeding to Biermuddo (the Black Water Hole). A man 
brought us in some honey of most excellent flavour, which 
I bought for some tobacco. Next morning, piloted by our 
guide, we went out early to look for elephant spoor, near 
some wells of which he knew. We soon found the very old 
spoor of a large bull elephant, and plenty of fresh rhinoceros 
spoor. We went on, however, to visit a second well, before 
following any track. We walked up a dried-up river-bed 
for about a mile, until we came to a pool of water, round 
which were the tracks of some half-dozen ‘ rhinos ’ and a few 
old elephant tracks. We singled out what appeared to be 
a really fresh track, and followed it. The spoor soon left 
the river-bed, and we quickly lost it in the rocky ground 
bordering the channel. I was pottering about, trying to 
find the tracks again, when T caught sight of a rhinoceros, 
slowly walking through the thin bushes, about 300 yards 
from me, up a bank. I had with me half a dozen men 
and my two ponies, as I expected every day to fall in with 
elephants. Leaving three men and the ponies behind, I 
followed the rhinoceros, and presently saw the beast again 
fairly close. I began to stalk him, making, however, a 
great noise in some thick bushes and on the stony ground. 
7 
