ch. x] THE MERIT COUNTRY 257 
savage beast; its skin was in fine shape, but it was not 
fat, and weighed just one hundred pounds. Now we all 
joined and shifted camp to a point eight or nine miles 
distant from Meru Boma, and fifteen hundred feet lower 
among the foothills. It was much hotter at this lower 
level; palms were among the trees that bordered the 
streams. On the day we shifted camp, Tarlton and I 
rode in advance to look for elephants, followed by our 
gun-bearers and half a dozen wild Meru hunters, each 
carrying a spear or a bow and arrows. When we 
reached the hunting-grounds—open country with groves 
of trees and patches of jungle—the Meru went off in 
every direction to find elephants. We waited their 
return under a tree, by a big stretch of cultivated 
ground. The region was well peopled, and all the way 
down the path had led between fields, which the Meru 
women were tilling with their adze-like hoes, and 
banana plantations, where among the bananas other 
trees had been planted, and the yam vines trained up 
their trunks. These cool, shady banana plantations, 
fenced in with tall hedges and bordered by rapid brooks, 
were really very attractive. Among them were scattered 
villages of conical thatched huts, and level places 
plastered with cow-dung, on which the grain was 
threshed; it was then stored in huts raised on posts. 
There were herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats, 
and among the burdens the women bore we often saw 
huge bottles of milk. In the shambas there were plat¬ 
forms, and sometimes regular thatched huts, placed in 
the trees; these were for the watchers, who were to 
keep the elephants out of the shambas at night. Some 
of the natives wore girdles of banana leaves, looking, as 
Kermit said, much like the pictures of savages in 
Sunday-school books. 
17 
