IX 
EXCURSIONS FROM EL BOGOI 
197 
After getting back to my ivory camp, I had a fruitless 
search for what turned out to be an imaginary elephant, which 
one of my men said had passed up on the other side of the 
stream while he was fetching water. Luckily I was getting quite 
strong again by that time, and so the extra exertion in that 
most exhausting cover did me no harm. I felt sure that if I 
had not been so unwell during the few days succeeding my 
great onslaught on the big herd, I might have picked up a few 
more, for some stragglers often hang about a neighbourhood 
for a couple of days after the main body’s retreat. By this 
time, though, I feared they must all have cleared out of the 
district. I had entertained great hopes of finding more down 
the river valley, but, as often happens in such cases, my visions 
of teeming preserves in that direction proved illusory. 
The next morning I sent off two men to fetch a couple 
more donkeys from El Bogoi, to enable us to carry all the 
ivory with us on our return thither. I also despatched 
Squareface, with the rest of the porters, for Barasaloi, to bring 
as much of the ivory from the elephants I had shot there as 
they could manage, as by this time the tusks would slip out 
without any chopping, owing to decomposition. Meanwhile, I 
sent a couple of Ndorobos to look for spoor up the valley of a 
small tributary stream coming out of the mountains, while 
I kept only Smiler to potter about with me, and amused 
myself shooting a few doves and a guinea-fowl or two, for the 
pot, with my rook rifle. There were numbers of both (the 
latter of the vulturine as well as the common kind) frequenting 
the mimosa groves near the river. The Ndorobos found no 
signs of elephants being about, but picked up a pair of tiny 
tusks of a calf which had died long ago, and brought them as 
an offering to me. Squareface and his men got back late at 
night, with the tusks of seven of the best elephants I had 
killed on 31st August. 
The ivory proved better than I had expected. Three of 
the bulls had tusks of about 50 lbs. apiece, which is about the 
