I 
FIRST EXPEDITION FROM MOMBASA 
fellow quite affectionately as I did, than return the compliment; 
so we always called each other Papa. 
Well, at last we did get elephant spoor. The first we 
found was two days old, but it proved the elephants were in the 
locality. Old Papa was quite moved with the sight, it was touch¬ 
ing to see him. Holding up his hand toward the sky he prayed, 
“ Ngai (God), give us elephants,” looking so earnest the while 
one could not but sympathise with his feelings, even if I had 
not been myself equally anxious for success. A little farther on 
the old man was deeply affected by coming upon some drop¬ 
pings, taking one of the dry loaves of vegetable fibre fondly in 
his hands and breaking it open to see whether still moist inside, 
so as to judge its age. The elephant is clearly the acme of the 
Ndorobo’s ideas of happiness. He would wish for unlimited 
elephants, just as you or I might for ;£i 0,000 a year. 
Elephant’s fat, in particular, seems to be the summit of their 
desires. “ Oh ! if I could but feed on elephant’s fat,” said my 
old friend, “ my wife would not know me when I went back, so 
sleek and plump should I become.” 
Where we first found this spoor was near a small spring 
at which we had slept, at the base of a rocky koppie. Here 
there was a deserted Ndorobo camp, where Papa’s clan had 
been about a month before. He showed me which had been 
his hut. The huts were mere gipsy shelters. There was a 
good-sized collection of them here. They did not seem to 
have had much success in hunting, judging by the bones, 
which were but few, about; among them were those of a 
giraffe. Several times in this country we came upon little 
circular low screens of branches, close to what were, when 
there was rain, small “ pools in the parched ground ” ; in these, 
Papa told me, the Ndorobo hunters watched by night for 
game. 1 
We were now taken on to a sandy stream bed, where our 
1 Farther north I saw nothing of this kind. Different clans, I found afterwards, 
have different methods of killing game. 
