242 
EAST AFRICA AND ITS BIG GAME. 
the usual attendants on the large herds of Masai 
cattle. 
Our time for the next few days was busily occupied 
in making preparations for the return of C- and 
myself to the coast, as we were obliged to leave about 
April the 20th, and were anxious to make another short 
trip before bidding a final farewell to Taveta. There 
was a good deal to be done in matter of disinfecting 
and packing our head-skins and skulls, to insure them 
against the attack of a local pest in the form of a small 
black hying beetle. 
Before leaving, we experienced several earthquake 
shocks, one of which awakened me in the early dawn 
by shaking the grass walls of our hut, and to such an 
extent that I thought some one was trying to get in. 
It also rained almost incessantly, and, as a matter 
of course, we were overrun with ants, black and white, 
in addition to innumerable other insects. 
A man was brought in one day with a broken thigh, 
and wanted us to set it for him ; he had been charged 
and knocked down by a rhino while out tending cattle, 
but as the accident had happened some time before, 
and faulty union had taken place, a refracture of the 
bone would have been necessary before any attempt at 
resetting, and this was rather beyond our surgical skill. 
After remaining five days at Taveta, we determined 
to separate into two parties, B-and H-going to 
Bhombu, and C-and I visiting the southern border 
of Lake Jipe, where the Count told us he had seen 
great quantities of varied game. The Count himself 
