340 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
posts supporting the ridge-pole of my hut as indicative of their 
length, declaring that the owners of these monstrous tusks 
were unable to lift their heads from the ground for their weight, 
or even to run ! Although I hardly credited these tales, it 
may well be imagined how I chafed under my imprisonment 
when plied with such enticements and assured that these and 
countless other elephants now thronged the banks of the lake, 
just south of Reshiat. A few elephants even passed close to 
my camp one moonlight night. My men wanted me to shoot 
at them ; but I said that I was not yet strong enough to tackle 
elephants again, and that when I was I should prefer attacking 
them by daylight on my first attempt. Two were still grazing 
on the flat when I went to bed. 
As a matter of fact, although for a time I had impatiently 
looked forward to getting to work again before long, I had at 
last reluctantly realised that all my schemes for penetrating 
farther into the unknown regions north and west of Bassu must 
be given up for this trip ; but so much in earnest was I, and so 
little discouraged by my reverse, that I used to amuse myself 
by laying plans for another on a larger scale and making lists 
of articles to be provided for the next expedition. Such 
occupations helped to pass the time, which often hung rather 
heavily, as I had little to read—and what I had had been read 
over and over again. But I found a good deal to interest me, 
even without leaving my hut, in watching the birds to be seen 
from my door. Flocks of the little, long-tailed, bearded doves 
were fond of feeding about on the ground outside, some coming 
close up to the very door when I kept still. The rosy bee- 
eaters, whose habit of riding on the great crested pauw I have 
already referred to, were very numerous, while their “ camels ” 
were common enough. One day I wrote thus in my diary :— 
“ Saw a bird that is new to me, apparently a stork. A pair of 
them are hunting about in front of my hut. They are jet black 
with white belly. One of the rose-coloured bee-eaters made use 
of one as a steed in the same way I have often seen them do 
