4 i8 ON SAFARI IN SOTIK WILDERNESS AND LAKE NAIVASHA 
night. While more comfortable, this was more difficult, and would 
not have been attempted but that it was the period of a full moon and 
Luna lighted their bushy path with her mild rays. The party rested 
during the hotter period of the day, covered, as they lay on the ground, 
with their overcoats and blankets. This was necessary to save them 
from the attacks of the multitudinous insects that hunted the hunters 
with insatiable appetite. 
That Colonel Roosevelt lost no time, but kept himself and those 
with him incessantly active, need not be reiterated. On June 4th, the 
day before setting out for Sotik, he visited the local station of the 
African Inland Mission and made one of his characteristic speeches, 
in which he warmly lauded the work of the mission. During the morn¬ 
ing he had been in the field with his comrades in search of monkeys, 
the chief prizes on this occasion falling to Mr. Heller, the naturalist 
of the expedition, who bagged three Colobus and one green-faced 
monkey. Kermit Roosevelt won two Colobi as his share of the game. 
When the Sotik district was reached, after their tramp through 
the waterless wilderness, the hunters found themselves in a well- 
watered region and one abundantly supplied with wild game. It was 
a land of grassy meadows and clumps of forest, interlaced by streams, 
its inhabitants being a tribe calling themselves the Kisii, a warlike but 
good-natured and intelligent race of blacks. Their industry consisted 
in farming, which they practiced with skill and success. 
In this district and the adjacent one of'Guasi Niryiso the hunters 
met with gratifying success, game being abundant. The much-desired 
white rhinoceros, however, was not in evidence, though they sought 
for it over many miles of country. At a later date, however, they got 
all the specimens desired of this rare beast. 
Their experience in these hunting grounds was much like that 
around Nairobi and need not be given in detail. It will suffice to say 
in general that wild beasts fell in goodly numbers and wide variety 
before their death-dealing weapons, and important additions were 
made to the tributes to science obtained for the Smithsonian and 
National Museums. 
On June 22d camp was made on the Loretta Plains and before 
that day ended Colonel Roosevelt had added another lion to his score. 
