66 
ON SAFARI 
After proceeding some miles in a northerly direction 
I began to perceive a change in the character of the 
country, forest and scrub giving place to “ elephant- 
grass.” Grass ? Well, when stuff grows to a height of 
ten or twelve feet in masses so solid and strong that one 
cannot force a way through it, such plants should have 
another name than that of the humble greenery of a 
lawn. For a time I did not realise the full import of 
the change, but imagined that these giant clumps 
through which we were seeking a path were merely a 
casual local phenomenon, and that we should presently 
get past them. I soon was undeceived. This was 
“elephant-grass”; it extended for untold leagues, 
encircling the southern shores of Lake Baringo, and it 
was right in the midst of such a fastness that our friend 
the elephant had selected his stronghold. This grass- 
forest, full ten feet in height, with tasselled flowering 
tops towering above that, was absolutely impenetrable 
to human-kind, save only by following the old tracks of 
elephant or buffalo, and these in places w T ere almost 
obliterated. One’s progress, moreover, was constantly 
intercepted by broken-down thorn-trees. How they got 
there 1 could not surmise, but one had to climb over or 
squeeze under them, and not a yard could one see in 
any direction, save only a narrow crevice of sky above, 
with the broiling sun right overhead. Naturally the 
naked, agile savages got through this awful stuff far 
quicker than we could follow ; yet it was absolutely 
necessary to keep in touch with them—or be lost. 
At length the elephant was reported to be within 
sight, and by climbing a dead tree (infested by biting 
ants) I indistinctly descried portions of a vast grey 
bulk beneath some flat-topped thorns, distant 400 
yards. Even that last short space gave trouble, 
for in the depths of that grass-forest we suddenly 
came on the river Tigerish, a deep, muddy stream, 
with perpendicular banks like a canal. This, though 
barely ten yards broad, we had to swim. In the over¬ 
hanging bushes colonies of weaver-finches had nests, some 
