8o 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
the Garden of Eden. There are only a few among their 
number having any skill at hunting, and even these are not 
what I should call expert hunters. They kill now and then an 
elephant or two or a rhinoceros, either by creeping up to and 
harpooning them or by trapping with a suspended javelin in a 
heavy shaft, on the “ booby trap ” principle, set in their paths, 
the weapon in either case being poisoned. In spite of the 
poison, however, the animal (at all events in the case of 
harpooning by hand) more often gets away wounded than is 
bagged, and frequently recovers from the wound, as I have 
myself shot elephants with old wounds on them, and in one we 
found the head of the weapon. Game of other kinds they 
seem hardly ever able to kill at all, except once in a way 
getting a giraffe in these traps. Their easiest victim is the rhino, 
which, on account of its sleepiness, is easily crept up to quite 
close ; and in consequence, in the neighbourhoods frequented 
by these savages, rhinos are scarce and the few there are rarely 
show themselves during daylight outside the thick bush. 
To return from this anticipatory digression to my journey. 
I left this time only half-a-dozen men in charge of my goods 
at Laiju ; for I wanted all available porters to carry food for 
myself and those who were to stay with me in the wilderness, 
and my small, but strong stockade being by this time com¬ 
pleted, a few were quite safe inside, in the event of any trouble 
with the neighbouring natives during my absence, and able to 
take care of my belongings. I will not give a detailed account 
of this journey from day to day, as it would be tedious. I 
travelled at first by a rather circuitous route round the eastern 
end of the Jambeni Range (the one always taken by Swahili 
ivory traders visiting the Ndorobo country), but instead of 
following the course upwards of the Gwaso Nyiro River, I 
crossed it and struck across country to a mountain called 
Gwargess, and thence to the foot of the Lorogi Mountains, 
where I formed a camp on a small stream called El Bogoi. 
There is a fair quantity of game in places along the route, 
