Aug. 20, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
289 
men and in addition required constant attention. 
Two nights out we had a rude awakening. 
Lions were not supposed to be about, but they 
were, and they made good use of their time, 
killing three donkeys and very seriously wound¬ 
ing another which I had to shoot the next day. 
This reduced my donkeys to six, which, with the 
absence of porters, had to be loaded correspond¬ 
ingly. Cruelty I have seen, and I may say have 
to a certain extent experienced, and I cannot 
stand seeing a dumb animal ill used, so I gave 
away the donkeys, or practically did so, and 
went on with reduced porters. 
A few days after this we ran into any quan¬ 
tity of game, but it was useless to kill, as we 
had plenty of meat, and I only did so as occas¬ 
ion required. The few natives we met now were 
friendly, but professed entire ignorance of gold. 
They would trade to a very limited extent, but 
always gave in exchange live stock, and as I 
knew by this time that I must have got to the 
southern point of Lake Rudolph, this rather sur¬ 
prised me. These natives told the boys that they 
were going on a very hazardous journey and 
would find very little water and hostile people 
and did their best to try to induce them to de¬ 
sert me. This only made me the more anxious 
to push on, but Eli told me to call an “indaba” 
and arrange matters if I could. 
The following morning I called all the porters 
together and through Eli thoroughly explained 
matters to them and gave them the forenoon to 
make up their minds. When I met them at 
three, one-half had already decided to return 
rather than take chances, and in one way I did 
not blame them, for they were out of their own 
country and believed all that was told them. 
Half of my porters left me. 
It was a very short time before I had multi¬ 
tudes of applicants for the positions vacated, and 
with Eli’s help I filled them. I had by this time 
put Hassan in the background. The natives now 
told me that we had passed the southern end of 
Lake Rudolph and were journeying up to the 
eastern side. As to this I was very sceptical, 
but it was true enough. The country was grow¬ 
ing barren and very rocky, and although I pan¬ 
ned what few streams we passed and all showed 
colors, there was no Eldorado in sight. Game 
was getting scarcer, and with the exception of a 
few species of antelope there was almost none. 
We came across rhinos of the most pugilistic 
type, and they would not allow the caravan to 
pass without interference. On three occasions I 
was obliged to shoot and kill, not wishing to at 
all, but merely to keep the road clear. If Afri¬ 
can hunters as a class see anything in a rhino 
to recommend, I must differ with them. I have 
met him from the Zambesi to 8 degrees North 
and have always found him quarrelsome and 
looking for trouble, and I know I am not the 
only one. He is one of the very few game ani¬ 
mals that will not give you right of way, and 
however big your caravan, look out for squalls 
when you have the misfortune to run across one 
of these beasts. 
For the next week we had very difficult travel¬ 
ing, but now again we were passing through a 
much more fertile country. There was plenty 
of elephant sign and I laid off for three days 
to rest up and try for a good bull. Eli told me 
that we should strike the big water within a few 
days, so there was no great hurry. So far our 
only real hardship had been lack of water—and 
that is bad enough. As long as you have water 
you can get along, but when obliged to go long 
marches and then run the risk of not finding 
water, it is not only excessively hard on every 
one, but extremely dangerous. I did not go out 
the first day, but remained in camp, writing up 
memoirs, cleaning my weapons and looking after 
my specimens which I found badly in need of 
attention. The head skins had been attacked by 
a species of beetle and I had to throw some away 
then and there, as they were quite spoilt. It was 
pretty sickening, but my own fault. The few 
that were unspoilt I dressed most carefully and 
repacked. 
When I went out to have a look around I 
came across fairly fresh spoor. When I struck 
it, it was too late to follow and exceedingly diffi¬ 
cult. Some natives can follow a spoor like a 
bloodhound, for they can naturally see things 
that an ordinary white man would pass by un¬ 
noticed. On getting back to camp I found that 
one of the porters had been bitten by a snake 
a few hours before. It was now too late to give 
him any remedy; however, although his leg 
swelled up terribly, he got well. The boys had 
applied hot fomentations and I suppose this had 
helped him. 
The next morning I started out with Eli and 
three boys and soon struck the fresh trail of a 
small herd. We had not gone very far when I 
saw them. There were two totos in the herd, 
but only one bull. Although he had very fine 
tusks I must confess I do not much care about' 
tackling a herd of elephant, or rather inter¬ 
fering with them when there are young ones, as 
the old cows are excessively vicious. Bad enough 
at all times, they are very much worse when 
there are totos with them. The cows kept on 
covering the bull, so that it took a lot of maneu¬ 
vering before I could get a shot, and although 
I gave him a double shot with my heavy rifle, 
if did not seem to harm him, and he went 
crashing off as if I had not hit him. Not so 
one old cow; up went her trunk and she started 
trumpeting and trying to find out my where¬ 
abouts, The rest had moved off with the bull. 
Whether one of the boys moved or whether she 
got our wind I do not know, but suddenly with 
a shrill scream she came right down on to us. 
I ran, and so did all. Fortunately the bush hap¬ 
pened to be fairly thick and gave us a certain 
amount of cover. One of the boys got up a 
tree just in time. It was strong enough to with¬ 
stand her efforts to pull it down. Although I 
could have shot her, I did not want to. Now 
the' danger was practically over and we went 
away, leaving her in sole charge. The boy of 
course was safe enough as long as he remained 
in the tre, but Eli told me she kept him there 
fully three hours before she went off. I ad¬ 
vised leaving the bull alone, as there was a big 
blood spoor and we could • easily take it up on 
the morrow, and I had no wish to have that 
irate old cow charging down at us again, so we 
returned to camp, and some hours after a very 
scared boy turned up who had no more elephant 
hunting left in him. 
When I took up the spoor next morning I 
had not gone far before Eli pointed out to me 
that he was ours and the flock of vultures con¬ 
firmed what he had said. He was a very fine 
bull and his ivory in splendid condition. Both 
my shots were fatal, but he had traveled quite 
four miles from where I had shot him. This 
bears out what has so often been said about ele¬ 
phant shooting; even if mortally wounded they 
have plenty of time before they die or drop to 
wreak vengeance on the sportsman. This is 
where the danger of hunting big game comes in, 
and although with the present high power rifles 
the danger is considerably lessened, it still exists. 
The porter that had been snake bitten being 
fit to travel, we started, and by nightfall reached 
a most perfect little camping ground with a nice 
stream of clear water, but not too much of it. 
You would come to quite a nice pool and then 
a stretch of dry sand and then another pool. 
At first I thought that these would pan out rich, 
but it was as before, a color and no more, and 
although I dug down and prospected to some 
extent, there were no results to justify my re¬ 
maining. The few natives we met seemed a 
poor scared lot of people, and certainly not the 
war-like crowd we had been led to believe we 
should encounter. They had a certain amount 
of stock, but seemed in deadly fear of the other 
tribes to the north; I suppose the Turkanas, who 
constantly raided them, driving off what cattle 
they could collect and stealing their women. The 
Turkanas are a people to be left strictly alone. 
They are a tribe of nomads living in a strip of 
country south of Abyssinia and north of British 
East Africa. They are a war-like tribe and rob 
their weaker neighbors right and left. They 
seem to have plenty of sheep, goats and cattle 
and a few horses', but these are very small. 
Climbing Mount Marcy 
By PALMER 
M OUNT MARCY, the crowning peak of 
the Adirondacks and the highest land in 
New York State, is a natural magnet 
for mountain climbers and summer tourists. To 
the experienced climber it is high enough to call 
the ascent a “climb”; to the tourist it offers 
exercise and an outing without danger. It also 
has another charm, perhaps the greatest of all— 
the beginning and ending of the trip is in such 
an entrancing country. 
Of the number of trails up Marcy, the one 
H. LANGDON 
which combines the poetry of nature with the 
prose of uphill work is via the Au Sable Lakes 
and Marcy Brook. To do this even in this iso¬ 
lated region, a little red tape is necessary, for 
the lakes and surrounding mountains are con¬ 
trolled by clubs which, however, thoughtfully 
permit the public to tramp over their ground 
when they have complied with a few simple 
rules which are, first to get a permit, the charge 
for which is slight, and then engage a reserva¬ 
tion guide. With guide and permit the traveler 
