CHAPTER IX 
THE COLONEL READS MACAULAY’S “ESSAYS,” DIS¬ 
COURSES ON MANY SUBJECTS WITH GREAT 
FRANKNESS, DECLINES A DRINK OF SCOTCH 
WHISKY, AND KILLS THREE ELE¬ 
PHANTS 
On the afternoon of November fourteenth, a little 
cavalcade of horsemen might have been seen riding 
slowly away from our camp on the Nzoia River. 
One of them, evidently the leader, was a well-built 
man of about fifty-one years, tanned by many 
months of African hunting and wearing a pair of 
large spectacles. His teeth flashed in the warm 
sunlight. A rough hunting shirt encased his well- 
knit body and a pair of rougher trousers, reinforced 
with leather knee caps and jointly sustained by 
suspenders and a belt, fitted in loose folds around 
his stocky legs. On his head was a big sun helmet, 
and around his waist, less generous in amplitude 
than formerly, was a partly filled belt of Winches¬ 
ter cartridges. His horse was a stout little Abys¬ 
sinian shooting pony, gray of color and lean in 
build, and in the blood-stained saddle-bag was a 
well-worn copy of Macaulay’s Essays , bound in 
pigskin. Our hero—for it was he—was none other 
than Bwana Tumbo, the hunter-naturalist, expo- 
141 
