A Kikuyu Spearman
The Porters Like Elephant Meat
My Masai Sais and Gunbearers
At Sergoi, the very outpost of crude civilization, we were warned not to go up the southern side of the mountain on account of the natives that live there. We were told that they were inclined to be troublesome. We met Captain Ashton and Captain Black coming out after six weeks on the northern slopes. They reported seeing big herds, but mostly cows and calves. At Sergoi we also received word from Colonel Roosevelt and at once marched to the Nzoia River, where we met him.
During our march we saw no elephants, but as we neared the river there were fresh signs of elephant along the trail. It is strikingly indicative of the "Roosevelt luck" that he saw, on the morning we met him, the only elephants that he had seen in the district, and that within twenty-four hours from that time he had killed three elephants and Kermit one. Of this number two cows killed by Colonel Roosevelt were satisfactory for the group, and also the calf killed by his son, Kermit. This left one young bull and two large bulls still to be secured, and to that end we addressed our efforts during the succeeding weeks.
For nine days we hunted the Nzoia River region, but without seeing an elephant. There were kongoni, zebra, topi, waterbuck, wart-hogs, reedbuck, oribi, eland, and Uganda cob, but scour the country as we would, we saw no sign of elephant except the broad trails in the grass and the countless evidences that they had been in the region some time before. The country was beautiful and wholesome. There was lots of game for our table, from the most delicious grouse to the oribi, whose meat is the tenderest I have ever eaten. There were ducks and geese and Kavirondo crane; and sometimes eland, as fine in flavor as that of the prize steer of the fat-stock show. Then there were reedbuck and cob, both of which are very good to eat. So our tins of camp pie and kippered herring and ox tongue remained unopened and we lived as we never had before.
When the day's hunt was over the sun in a splendid effort painted such sublime sunsets above Mount Elgon as I had never dreamed of. And the music of hundreds of African birds along the river's edge greeted us with the cool, delightful dawn. Purely from an æsthetic standpoint, our days on the Nzoia were ones never to be forgotten, while from the standpoint of the man who loves to see wild game and doesn't care much about killing it, the bright, clear days on the Nzoia were memorable ones. The Roosevelt party went its way back to civilization; the Spaniards, De la Huerta and the Duke of Peñaranda, came and made a flying trip up the mountain for elephant, then returned and went their way. The young Baron Rothschild came on to the plateau for a couple of weeks and then disappeared. And still we lingered on, happy, healthy, generally hungry, and intoxicated with the languorous murmur of Africa.