EAST AFRICA AND ITS BIG GAME. 
216 
idea of distance, I was loath to believe that Sina would 
have said the game was quite near if it were a good 
day’s journey distant, so I decided to carry on the 
exploration for another hour or two. 
We accordingly penetrated the forest, which was 
quite startling in its beauty and magnificence. I 
had never seen so many tall trees together before, 
some of them being from eighty to a hundred feet 
high before branching. Vast creepers hung like 
green ropes from their lofty branches, while every 
variety of foliage and every shade of green, with many 
ferns of all sorts, from the gigantic tree-fern down¬ 
wards, were interspersed with rank undergrowth and 
bright flowers. This forest was alive with dark blue 
pigeons, hornbills, trogans, and many other kinds of 
birds, but we saw no sign of any four-footed beast. 
Having marched through the forest for two hours, much 
against the will of my men, the Wa-kiboso, who were 
to follow on and catch us up, arrived, and it was then 
explained that they had come provided with enough 
bananas and sweet potatoes for a week's outing! On 
further questioning they declared that if we wanted to 
see game we must sleep out, an arrangement for which 
we were in no way prepared; so I reluctantly gave up 
the pursuit, feeling much annoyed at having been led 
out on such a wild-goose chase. 
On the way back I met several women, who all fled 
precipitately from me as if I were a wild beast. From 
the glimpses I caught of them, they seemed to have 
nothing on but a small tassel of beads tied round the 
