833 
ch. xn] THE NILE WATERSHED 
not quite understand; then he pondered a moment or 
two, and suddenly leaped into the air, exclaiming in 
Swahili: “ Now I am a big man.” And he faithfully 
strove to justify his promotion. In similar fashion 
Kermit picked out on the Nairobi race-track a Kikuyu 
sais named Magi, and brought him out with us. Magi 
turned out the best sais in the safari, and besides doing 
his own duty so well, he was always exceedingly inter¬ 
ested in everything that concerned his own Bwana, 
Kermit, or me, from the proper arrangement of our sun- 
pads to the success of our shooting. 
From the giraffe camp we went two days’ journey to 
the ’Nzoi River. Until this Uasin Gishu trip we had 
been on waters which either vanished in the desert or 
else flowed into the Indian Ocean. Now we had crossed 
the divide, and were on the Nile side of the watershed. 
The ’Nzoi, a rapid, muddy river passing south of Mount 
Elgon, empties into the Victoria Nyanza. Our route 
to its bank led across a rolling country, covered by a 
dense growth of tall grass, and in most places by open 
thorn scrub, while here and there, in the shallow valleys 
or depressions, were swamps. There were lions, and 
at night we heard them ; but in such long grass it was 
wellnigh hopeless to look for them. Evidently troops 
of elephants occasionally visited these plains, for the 
tops of the little thorn-trees were torn off and browsed 
down by the mighty brutes. How they can tear off 
and swallow such prickly dainties as these thorn 
branches, armoured with needle - pointed spikes, is a 
mystery. Tarlton told me that he had seen an elephant, 
while feeding greedily on the young top of a thorn-tree, 
prick its trunk until it uttered a little scream or whine 
of pain; and it then, in a fit of pettishness, revenged 
itself by wrecking the thorn-tree. 
