82 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
quite dry), at a convenient distance from the last stream. I 
found afterwards that by a more direct route this place may be 
reached on the second day. Here I found the skull of a 
greater koodoo, an antelope which must be exceedingly scarce 
in this part of Africa, as I had never yet come across one. 
While here two or three young Embe natives came to get 
water to drink. I had one brought to camp, and questioned 
him as to where they had been, as their own district is a 
considerable distance away. He said a large party of them 
had been to make a raid on the Ndorobos of Lorian but had 
failed to find them. These Embe people are a cowardly, but 
cruel race ; they are afraid to attack any other tribe, so harry 
the unfortunate Ndorobos. I told him what I thought about 
it, and put him in rather a fright ; and old “ Papa ” (who was 
with me as on a former trip), when he heard that his relatives 
were to have been attacked, immediately drew out of his 
quiver, with a savage look, his two most villainous-looking 
arrows. The wretched fellow was divided in his mind between 
fear and thirst ; fidgeting, as if wanting to run away, and 
drinking alternately, until I reassured him by bursting out 
laughing at “ Papa’s ” vengeful expression and let him go about 
his business with advice to let the Ndorobos alone. In passing 
round the end of the Jambeni Range the baobabs are left 
behind. From the coast up their bloated trunks have been a 
common feature, but here the last are seen. 
The next camping place is by a very perfect crater. Of 
this I wrote in my diary—“ This is a curious place, but a 
disagreeable camp. The crater is large and deep. There is a 
small lake at the bottom whose shallow water is very strongly 
impregnated with some mineral (natron ?) smelling and tasting 
of ammonia. It is in large white crystals. There were crowds 
of Embe women fishing quantities of this substance up from 
the bottom of the shallow water and carrying it up the steep 
path in huge loads on their backs. I lifted one. It weighed 
not a bit less, I will undertake to say, than a hundred pounds. 
