194 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST A EPIC A 
CHAP. 
(with which title I dignified a cigar-box which contained the 
few simple drugs I' carried with me in my expeditions), as I 
had no more quinine with me. Notwithstanding this, however, 
I went out to look for elephants down stream. We found 
spoor of the night before at the junction of the valleys, and, 
seeing no more lower down, returned and followed it up the 
Barasaloi. There was only a small lot (probably a portion of 
the big herd), consisting of small cows and calves, and they 
appeared to be travelling; so I did not follow very far— 
indeed, I was quite unequal to a long tramp—but returned to 
camp about mid-day. 
The heat in this confined valley was exceedingly sultry 
now, and trying to one when weak and out of health ; more¬ 
over, I could not tackle the coarse fare of elephant and insipid 
porridge, so that I was not able to throw off the attack so 
quickly as I usually did a bout of familiar fever. Juma, too, 
was away longer than I had expected ; but I got so far better, 
even without the medicine, and so tired of two or three days 
about camp, that I determined to move on down the valley 
whether he came or not. Luckily, he turned up the evening 
before I had arranged to start, so that I was able to take my 
tent, which otherwise we should have been unable to carry. 
He explained that the cause of his delay was, that, the night 
he got to El Bogoi, a rhinoceros had charged the donkey 
kraal, and he had waited to help hunt up and collect the 
scattered animals. During his absence we had got out the 
teeth of the five elephants I had killed the first day, near 
where my camp was, and buried them. 
Then we moved on down the main valley. We travelled 
on, following the river as much as possible, during the morning, 
but our progress was but slow. The hills closed in more, and 
got more rugged as we proceeded ; indeed the valley was now, 
practically, a gorge in the Mathews range, and the tops of 
the mountains towered up to a height of probably 3000 feet 
above the river. But the floor of the valley was still flat and 
