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They would never dream of leaving while the most cherished of their possessions were in hostage. Here we were finally off at dawn. It was a very chilly, wet dawn, with the fog so thick that we could see not over ten feet ahead. We had four porters, carrying about twenty-five pounds apiece of the bare necessities, Kongoni, and Leyeye. The Masai struck confidently enough through the mist.
Each day Memba Sasa and I went in one direction, while Mavrouki and Kongoni took another line. We looked carefully for signs, but found none fresher than the month before. Plenty of other game made the country interesting; but we were after a shy and valuable prize, so dared not shoot lesser things.
Kongoni in especial was wonderful at this, and time and again picked up a broken grass blade or the minutest inch-fraction of disturbed earth. We moved slowly, in long hesitations and castings about, and in swift little dashes forward of a few feet; and often we went astray on false scents, only to return finally to the last certain spot.
The sun dipped at last toward the west, a faint irregular breeze wandered down from the hills, certain birds awoke and uttered their clear calls, an unsuspected kongoni stepped from the shade of a tree over the way and began to crop the grass, the shadows were lengthening through the trees. Then ahead of us an uneasiness ran through the herd.
Suddenly a villainous thought might enter my head, such as "That big kongoni has enormous horns," and instantly the herd would prick up their ears, run a few steps, and then turn to verify their suspicions. Then, if the villainous thought still lurked in my brain, they would sneeze shrilly and go galloping away in the distance.
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.
So finally we decided to get ahead of them and watch them as they passed us, but just as we had reached a point where they were approaching, the two kongoni gave a shrill alarm and the entire herd made off in tremendous haste.
If the horse is an especially good one, so that the kongoni feels himself a trifle closely pressed, the latter stops bouncing and runs. Then he simply fades away into the distance. These beasts are also given to chasing each other all over the landscape.
Of this lot some few stand out from the rest, and deserve particular attention. Of course I had my veterans, Memba Sasa and Mohammed. There was also Kongoni, gunbearer, elsewhere described. The third gunbearer was Marrouki, a Wakamba. He was the personal gunbearer of a Mr. Twigg, who very courteously loaned him for this trip as possessing some knowledge of the country.
A five-minutes' walk from camp would show you a rhino, while from the top of any knoll one could look across a vast sweep of hills upon which almost countless numbers of zebras, kongoni, and other animals might be seen. But never a lion. It certainly looked discouraging. As a form of pleasant excitement, we began to photograph rhinos, Mr.
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