CHAPTER XIII 
ELEPHANTS 
Passing over tedious days spent fighting with fever 
at Nakuru—days while tropical thunderstorms raged 
every afternoon and 1 was held up a prisoner in my tent 
—an incident occurred that altered all our plans. 
There arrived direct news of elephants—news on which 
we could rely; the elephants, moreover, were close at 
hand. Within five-and-twenty miles a big herd had 
been seen on the Molo River to the westward, and were 
reported to be moving across us towards the north¬ 
east. 
Now throughout that season of 1905-6 herds of 
elephants had been rambling here and there within our 
British territories, and their presence at various points 
had already been reported to us. Hitherto, however, all 
such reports had been more or less indefinite, and in 
every case the distance considerable. Elephants, we 
knew, move fifty miles in a night—our own extreme 
mobility being twenty ; hence all seductions had hither¬ 
to been declined. But here the case was wholly altered. 
If the herd now reported—said to number forty—held 
the line of march stated, we lay almost on their flank, 
and, by a smart move, might cut them out. 
It was a clear chance—the chance, maybe, of a lifetime 
—and we seized it. Though personally ill and weak, we 
were into the saddle and away by daybreak. Our plan 
of campaign was to march direct on Lake Solai, a marshy 
vlei lying some twenty-five miles to the north-east among 
the outliers of the Laikipia Range, and which was known 
to be an occasional resort of elephants—in the hope either 
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