40 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
The next morning, though it was raining, I was up about 
4 A.M., and by the time it was fairly light we had packed up 
and were ready to start. I left my headman and half-a-dozen 
porters at this camp, to try and trade some ivory. I had 
brought him chiefly for the purpose of trading a lot of goods 
I had hampered myself with unwisely, and found both a great 
nuisance and very little use. I was glad to leave him behind, 
as I did not like the way he conducted my negotiations with 
the natives. My guide of yesterday (who had overtaken us 
on the way back) and another native accompanied us. I went 
to the spring of the little spruit we had crossed the day before 
(seeing no game on the way), where was a very pleasant, 
convenient, and picturesque spot for my camp, under a grand 
old low-crowned thorn tree with wide-spreading horizontal 
boughs, which grew on a little rise above the stream. The 
tree gave shade; its great limbs were most handy to put 
things on—one, too, formed a comfortable seat; it lent itself 
exactly to the making of a capital boma of suitable size for 
us by simply having thorny branches packed all round under 
the drooping extremity of its umbrella-shaped crown ; and 
altogether the camp was one of the nicest I ever had, the 
country around being fairly open, and the grass short and at 
that time green. 
Leaving half my men in camp to build the “ boma,” I 
went on with the rest to chop out the tusks of my three 
elephants of the day before, intending also to go on to look 
for others. On the way we met some natives from the kraals 
near: they were most friendly in their greetings, hailing me 
as a deliverer on account of my shooting the elephants, which 
destroy their crops, and whose depredations they compare 
to the Masai raids. This is the district called Mthara, the 
tribe which fought with Chanler. Their experience of the 
consequences of attacking the white man seemed to have 
taught them to respect him, and to have inspired them with 
a desire to make him their friend ; so they received me with 
