381 
CH. xn] FLOWERS OF AFRICA 
its flowers. Most of these bushes were in full bloom, 
as they had been six months before on the Athi and 
three months before near Kenia ; some bore berries, of 
which it is said that the wild elephant herds are fond. 
It is hard to lay down general rules as to the blossom¬ 
ing times of plants or breeding times of animals in 
equatorial Africa. Before we left the Uasin Gishu 
tableland some of the hartebeest cows appeared with 
new-born calves. Some of the acacias had put forth 
their small, globular, yellow blossoms, just as the 
acacias on the Athi plains were doing in the previous 
May. The blue lupins were flowering, for it is a cool, 
pleasant country. 
Our camp here was attractive, and Kermit and I took 
advantage of our leisure to fill out the series of speci¬ 
mens of the big hartebeest and the oribi which Heller 
needed for the National Museum. The flesh of the 
oribis was reserved for our own table; that of the 
kanganis—which had been dulyhal-lalled by the Moslems 
among our gun-bearers—was turned over to what might 
be called the officers’ mess of the safari proper, the head¬ 
men, cooks, tent-boys, gun-bearers, and saises ; while, of 
course, the skinners and porters who happened to be out 
with us when any animal was slain got their share of the 
meat. We also killed two more hyenas ; one, a dog, 
weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, being smaller 
than those Heller had trapped while skinning the first 
bull elephant I shot in the Kenia forest. 
Good Ali, my tent-boy, kept bowls of the sweet- 
scented jessamine on our dining-table. Now that there 
were four of us together again we used the dining-tent, 
which I had discarded on the Guaso Nyero trip. Bak- 
hari had been rather worn down by the work on the 
Guaso Nyero, and in his place I had taken Kongoni, a 
