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vm EXCURSIONS FROM EL BO GO I 183 
ready, and I could bathe and rest, for it had been intensely 
hot work in the dense brake, under a broiling sun, and I was 
tired. In the evening I arranged for two of my Ndorobo 
companions to go back with all speed the next day, to call 
their friends and send word to Lesiat and his clan to come and 
eat the elephants, that the meat might not be wasted. 
This was the most interesting country I had yet been in. 
It was perfectly wild—not even any signs of Ndorobo natives 
about—and quite new, that is, no white man had ever been 
into the district. In these respects it satisfied my craving 
for absolutely untouched nature. Ahead, the berg—a part 
of the Mathews range — loomed up imposingly. It seemed 
really a big mountain, much higher than I had thought, often 
cloud-capped, and apparently with “ subugo ” forest on the 
top. This mysterious El Gereh swamp, too, which absorbs 
all these streams, had always had an attractive interest for me. 
The contrast between the green, damp valley and the dry, 
barren hills enclosing it is very marked and curious. What 
crops of bananas and sugar-cane these moist alluvial flats 
might produce, I could not help thinking, if there were only 
cultivators ! But the climate is trying—excessively hot and 
very malarious—and I myself was by no means in the robust 
health I had enjoyed during the whole of my previous trip. 
I only wished that I felt better up to the work I made no 
doubt was before me ; but my appetite was indifferent, and 
I did not sleep comfortably, and so, of course, my strength 
suffered. 
I did not get off quite so early as usual the morning after 
(31st August), not intending to go far, but merely to prospect 
the country ahead a bit. I took one Ndorobo boy with me, 
while the other was to remain to show my men yesterday’s 
elephants, for them to take the fat out of (to be used for 
purposes of light, etc.), the remaining two lads having already 
started to carry the news of the harvest of meat to their friends. 
We followed the spoor of the retreating herd of yesterday, up 
