168 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
were to remain here. All hands were satisfied and as cheerful 
as possible. During the afternoon an Ndorobo turned up and 
told us where my old friends were camped. 
The first thing to do now was to get hold of my old 
Ndorobo friends, so I sent Squareface, my gun-bearer and 
interpreter, to hunt them up, while the shed was building for 
storing my goods. It being very nearly completed, the second 
day I sent off Abdulla, with most of the men (keeping only 
twelve with me), for Mthara, to buy and bring on as much 
food as they could carry. I also hoped he might manage to 
buy a few more donkeys, to replace those that had died ; for I 
had only fifteen left now, the last of the sick ones having just 
succumbed. I had hoped that this one would have recovered, 
but now every one that had showed symptoms of being “ fly- 
stuck” was dead. I calculated that Abdulla could not get 
back here under a month, and I meant to employ my time in 
hunting during his absence. 
The day the caravan started, Squareface returned with 
Lorgete, one of my Ndorobo friends, but Lesiat (the most 
important one) did not come, his camp being in another 
direction. Lorgete said that he and his people were, as 
usual, starving, and he had not even any honey to bring 
me. He had killed no elephants since I was here, though 
Lesiat, he informed me, had slain two ; but he said that there 
was a herd of bulls still about. I arranged with him that I 
would meet him the day but one after, at one of my old hunting- 
camps, which was in the direction in which he said the elephants 
were, and that in the meantime he was to get precise news of 
their present whereabouts. So, after finishing the thatching of 
the shed and storing my goods in it, I moved on there, leaving 
two or three men in charge of the stores and donkeys. 
After pitching camp in the same spot whence I had done 
some hunting the year before, I took a stroll in the afternoon 
in the hopes of seeing giraffe. But though I searched in what 
had been a favourite haunt the year before, they seemed to 
