AFTER ELEPHANT AT BARINGO 
71 
though he had just received two cordite-driven bullets 
in his head, he instantly, within fifteen seconds, repeated 
his charge a second time, and after all, with some seven 
balls in his head, travelled upwards of twenty miles 
almost without stopping. 
Subsequently Archer wrote me that, a fortnight 
later, during his absence on duty, an immense bull- 
elephant, carrying tusks of 90-lbs. apiece, had come 
down to the water at Magi-Moto and had died there! 
It was not, of course, proved that this was our elephant, 
though the probability amounted to no less than a 
moral certainty. Unluckily, owing to Archer’s absence, 
the ivory disappeared, falling into the hands of some 
Swahili traders. 
The foregoing serves incidentally to show how easy 
it is for an elephant—or for a herd of elephants, 
enormous as is their bulk—to exist unseen ; as easy as 
for a rabbit at home, so dense and far-spreading is the 
tropical jungle ! Another illustration of this fell within 
my own knowledge. Two Englishmen had gone snipe- 
shooting on a marsh bordered by comparatively narrow 
belts of heavy reed. For some hours they had been 
shooting away merrily, when from these reeds hard by 
there emerged a whole herd of elephants quietly moving 
off in search of a less noisy siesta. 
A point that struck me during our sojourn at 
Njemps was the inveterate laziness of the native 
savages. Each morning, shortly after dawn, groups of 
them assembled at certain spots, each man bringing 
a “ cracket,” or low three-legged stool, whereon he 
squatted, his spear stuck in the ground within arm’s- 
length ; there they sat the livelong day, neither talking, 
working nor even, apparently, thinking—simply idling 
away the hours and the days. Those groups which 
squatted thus around our tents might perhaps be 
presumed to be in consultation with H.M.’s representa¬ 
tive ; but all over the village sat other groups similarly 
“ employed/’ The Njemusi are stated to be a degenerate 
offshoot of the Masai—“ degenerate ” because they affect 
