i 
v NDOROBO ELEPHANT-HUNTING 105 
and quite spoilt the old chap’s pleasure during these times of 
plenty, and he eventually lost half the wounded finger. 
These were great times with the Ndorobos of the whole 
country-side. They all camped in the vicinity and in a few 
days got quite sleek and fat, so that 1 could hardly recognise 
my recently starved-looking neighbours. As, however, they 
had overrun the elephants’ favourite haunts, there seemed no 
chance of more luck for me thereabouts for a time ; so I de¬ 
termined to move a little farther off again. I was sorry to 
leave my pleasant camp at El Bogoi, with its pure little stream 
of water and shady tree with a canopy of creepers under which 
I could sit and rest in the cool. I was pretty hard worked 
there though, for game had to be sought a considerable distance 
away to keep up the supply of meat, as my men had not yet 
overcome the stupid Swahili prejudice against eating elephant 
meat, though they did eventually when they got nothing else. 
I was much inclined to move up on to the Lorogi range, where 
there are extensive forests of the kind called by the Ndorobos 
“ Subugo ” (a name applied to all similar high, damp forest 
tracts), and several times told my native friends I wanted them 
to guide me there. They did not refuse, but always tried to 
dissuade me and evidently disliked the idea, their principal 
objections being the cold and wet. One headman and 
particular friend of mine expressed the hardship he would think 
it to have to go there, by asking—“If I had a donkey” (he 
did not add “what wouldn’t go”) “would I take him to the 
Subugo ? ” So, as during the whole of my stay in the district 
the mountains were almost continually enveloped in cloud, I 
concluded their advice was good ; for not only would the 
climate be extremely unpleasant, but the elephants only 
frequent these cool, swampy forests when, through drought, 
water is very scarce elsewhere. Moreover, I had already made 
one mistake, against their advice, in going to Nyiro mountain. 
I therefore only went across the Leseya (or Seya) River (one 
day’s march) ; and I did but little good there, only once finding 
