i6o 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
with “ fly ” and other risks, some deaths are always to be 
expected. I felt thankful that we were at last ready to 
trek once more. It having now served our turn, we sent 
our good ship adrift, knowing that it would be rotten before 
we returned. 
We did not get off very early the next morning, having so 
many pack-donkeys with new pads and “ sogis ” to load for the 
first time ; but it did not matter, as the stage was only a shor 
one to the first of several small rivers—tributaries of the Tana, 
from the Jambeni hills—that have to be crossed. They are 
all fordable, but the loads have mostly to be carried over by 
the men, to avoid getting them wet. I found that I had, 
luckily, calculated almost to a pound the quantity of food we 
should require ; and, on starting from the river, all hands had 
ten days’ rations, while of the twenty donkeys seventeen carried 
food. 
It takes a long time packing a lot of donkeys, and it is a 
bad plan to start the caravan before they are all ready. I 
found it took about an hour and a half from the time the men 
were called till we could actually get off; so I used to blow 
my cartridge-case 1 at 3.30 or 4 A.M., according to the nature 
of the country. Under the equator, the dawn first begins per¬ 
ceptibly about 5, and if the going was fairly passable I used to 
start then ; but in very rough and bushy ground a little more 
light is necessary, in which case 5.30 is early enough. With 
a morning moon, and in decent ground or on a path, one may 
start at any hour. It is most important to get off as early as 
possible ; for in the cool of the morning the men do not feel 
the work, while after 11 o’clock the sun gets very powerful, 
and every half-hour then tells on them more than an extra 
hour before sunrise. 
I had intended taking a path used by Wakamba hunting 
1 An empty cartridge-case (I found a long .450 the best) is the most handy and 
serviceable call you can use in the “bara,” whether to arouse the camp in the morning 
or to signal to your gun-bearers in the bush. It is easily carried, can be replaced if lost, 
may be heard a long way, and does not alarm game. 
