IX 
EXCURSIONS FROM EL BOGOI 
195 
of some width, and was covered, for the most part, with dense, 
low scrub of a kind peculiar to salt swampy ground. It is 
composed of a very green, small-leaved shrub, which forms the 
densest thickets, utterly impenetrable for anything but an 
elephant, its branches, though thornless, being intertwined and 
matted together, and presenting a compact, green, wall-like 
barrier. Even the elephant paths are passable only with 
difficulty; for they are often mere tunnels, and everywhere 
stiff, springy branches stick out across them and encumber the 
ground, tripping one up and making locomotion most arduous 
and uncomfortable. Elephants do not appear to feed on this 
kind of bush, and only use these jungles as a retreat when 
alarmed. We found no fresh spoor, nor even much old ; nor 
was there any bush of the kind likely to harbour elephants 
under ordinary circumstances. Indeed the country seemed so 
unpromising, that about noon, feeling fatigued even with this 
short march, I decided to camp and send Squareface on ahead 
to spy out the land before going farther myself; for it seemed 
useless to push on, with no prospect of finding elephants, while 
we were, perhaps, leaving them behind us. I was so much out 
of health that I could not shoot a bit, and had missed two 
Waller’s gazelle during the morning. A few of these were all 
the game we had seen, besides “ paa ” (Kirk’s antelope), which 
were plentiful. 
As the heat was excessive, I was anxious to find a shady 
spot to camp in, and, noticing a thick clump of trees and bushes 
close above the river-bank, I crept in, with my Ndorobo guide, 
to examine it, with a view to camping inside. While we stood 
surveying this nice cool retreat, my companion spied a rhino 
lying asleep close by—it having chosen the same pleasant 
shade to rest in that had attracted us. As the meat would be 
most useful to us and enable us to economise our small supply 
of meal, and as the beast was, as it were, delivered into our 
hands, so opportunely, on the very spot where we intended 
pitching our camp, I shot it at once, giving it two solid bullets 
