TO THE UASIN GISHU 
345 
oribi and hartebeest were usually to be seen from the tents. 
The hartebeest, by the way, in its three forms, is much the 
commonest game animal of East Africa. 
A few miles beyond this swamp we suddenly came on a 
small herd of elephants in the open. There were eight 
cows and two calves, and they were moving slowly, feeding 
on the thorny tops of the scattered mimosas, and of other 
bushes which were thornless. The eyesight of elephants is 
very bad; I doubt whether they see more clearly than a 
rather near-sighted man; and we walked up to within 
seventy yards of these, slight though the cover was, so that 
Kermit could try to photograph them. We did not need to 
kill another cow for the National Museum, and so after we 
had looked at the huge, interesting creatures as long as we 
wished, we croaked and whistled, and they moved off with 
leisurely indifference. There is always a fascination about 
watching elephants; they are such giants, they are so intel¬ 
ligent—much more so than any other game, except perhaps 
the lion, whose intelligence has a very sinister bent—and 
they look so odd with their great ears flapping and their 
trunks lifting and curling. Elephants are rarely absolutely 
still for any length of time; now and then they flap an ear, 
or their bodies sway slightly, while at intervals they utter 
curious internal rumblings, or trumpet gently. These were 
feeding on saplings of the mimosas and other trees, ap¬ 
parently caring nothing for the thorns of the former; they 
would tear off branches, big or little, or snap a trunk short 
off if the whim seized them. They swallowed the leaves and 
twigs of these trees; but I have known them merely chew 
and spit out the stems of certain bushes. 
After leaving the elephants we were on our way back to 
