THE GUASO NYERO 
317 
not looking for crocodiles, but for land foes, lions or leop¬ 
ards. Each in turn drank, skipping up to the top of the 
bank after a few mouthfuls, and then returning to the water. 
The bull followed with rather less caution, and before he 
had finished drinking the cows scurried hurriedly back to 
the thorn-trees and the open country. We had plenty of 
meat in camp, and I had completed my series of this species 
of waterbuck for the museum; and I was glad there was 
no need to molest them. 
The porters were enjoying the rest and the abundance 
of meat. They were lying about camp or were scattered 
up and down stream fishing. When, walking back, I 
came to the outskirts of camp, I was attracted by the buzzing 
and twanging of the harp; there was the harper and two 
friends, all three singing to his accompaniment. I called 
‘‘Yambo’" (greeting), and they grinned and stood up, 
shouting “Yambo’^ in return. In camp a dozen men were 
still at work at the giraffe skin, and they were all singing 
loudly, under the lead of my gun-bearer, Gouvimali, who 
always acted as shanty man, or improvisatore, on such 
occasions. 
For a week we now trekked steadily south across the 
equator, heel and toe marching, to Neri. Our first day’s 
journey took us to a gorge riven in the dry mountain. Half¬ 
way up it, in a side pocket, was a deep pool, at the foot of 
a sloping sheet of rock, down which a broad, shallow dent 
showed where the torrents swept during the rains. In the 
trees around the pool black drongo shrikes called in bell¬ 
like tones, and pied hornbills flirted their long tails as they 
bleated and croaked. The water was foul; but in a dry 
country one grows gratefully to accept as water anything 
