IV 
THE NDOROBO COUNTRY 
93 
me) from coming on ; so I only stayed two or three days before 
retracing my steps towards my camp at the last-named place. 
While at Nyiro I found an ostrich’s nest, when out hunting 
for meat, containing no less than twenty-eight eggs. It was 
a great sell to find them hard sat upon. I shot the male bird, 
but he was in poor plumage. On my return journey I had an 
easy chance to shoot a magnificent bull eland, as he came 
towards us, where we sat resting one day, attended by four 
cows, and walked to within short range before finding out what 
we were, the wind happening to be right. But as it was just 
in the middle of our longest march, and we could not have 
carried either the meat or his grand head, I refused to be 
tempted to harm him, though my cook pleaded that his 
department was out of fat. The game that I shot for meat 
on this trip consisted of giraffe, zebra, oryx, and Grant’s gazelle. 
One male oryx which I shot had only one horn, giving it a 
curious resemblance to the unicorn of heraldry. The other 
must have been broken off at the base when it was young, as 
the skin had grown right over the place. I kept the skull, 
but unfortunately the scalp went bad, or it would have been 
a curiosity when mounted. On getting near the Lorogi 
mountains again I skirted along the foot of the range in hopes 
of finding elephants, but there was no fresh spoor there then. 
Thus by the time I once more reached El Bogoi I had 
been two months away from my Laiju boma without bagging 
a single elephant — a not very hopeful look-out, truly, for 
paying the expenses of my rather large caravan, which were 
running on month after month, while the goods I had brought 
from the coast in the hope of trading some ivory to help 
towards covering its heavy cost were lying idle, and there 
seemed no chance of doing anything with them. However, I 
had at length come to a more favourable turning in my long 
lane, and during the ensuing month I had a fair amount of 
luck among the elephant in the district around El Bogoi. Of 
this hunting I will now endeavour to give some account. 
