The mass of animals surges and undulates to and fro. Some old bulls of the heavily horned hartebeest species seem to have undertaken the duty of sentinels. They stand apart fixed and motionless, watching attentively the strange appearance of the approaching man, and then make away in a long striding gallop, with heads bent well down, to increase the distance between themselves and the suspicious object, ready all the while to give the alarm signal for a general stampede by loud snorting. In this district we do not find the flat-horned hartebeest of the Kilimanjaro (Bubalis cokei, Gthr.), but the species named after its discoverer, Jackson (Bubalis jacksoni). Long and stately horns distinguish this variety of a remarkably formed species of antelope, which is widely distributed throughout Darkest Africa. To my great delight I succeeded in bringing down a specimen of a much more interesting species, Neumann’s hartebeest4 (Bubalis neumanni, Rothsch.), then only known by one or two examples.

Overwhelming in its vastness, its rich variety of colour, form, and movement is the picture of animal life thus displayed.

Moving along the hollows of the plateau hour after hour, looking out from its ridges, now with the field-glass, now with unaided sight, I find the whole grassy expanse covered with these wild creatures. Hundreds and hundreds more of zebras alternate with larger or smaller herds of Grant’s gazelles. Near them, but keeping apart, and all around them the dwarf gazelles are swarming. Here and there one sees the proudly uplifted head of a stately waterbuck, adorned with splendid branching horns, and not far off his hornless doe, both of them in form and action greatly reminding one of the stag, of our northern lands. Occasionally the eye catches sight of splendid black-plumed cock ostriches here and there on the plateau. They watch the traveller carefully, and are accompanied by their mates, which are very much more difficult for the eye to make out owing to their plain grey plumage. On all sides there are whole herds of brown hartebeests grazing, resting, or making for some more distant spot with their characteristic long striding gallop. And now one suddenly comes upon a herd of giant eland antelopes, brownish yellow, and adorned with white cross-stripes. Conscious of their mighty strength, there is not much shyness about them; but they know not the danger they run from the long-range weapon of the European.

Think of all this animal life, bathed in the fulness of the tropical sunlight! All depths and shades of colour play before our eyes. Strongly cast shadows, ever changing with the position of the sun, alter again and again the whole appearance of this world of life, and from minute to minute it presents new riddles to any one who has not had years of experience in the wilderness. When the glittering light of the midday hours is tiring and confusing the sight, one often can hardly tell for certain whether it be a living multitude stretching out in the distance before one, or whether the play of the sunlight is imparting a semblance of life to scattered clumps of thorn bushes.

Four rhinoceroses which I now descry moving across the plain in the distance, and a flock of ostriches which I can plainly make out with the field-glass, change shape and colour so often that it is astonishing to see them. According to their movements and position with respect to the sun they appear to be of a blending blue and grey, or intensely black, and then again almost invisible and the colour of the earth, but always changing, always different from what they were the moment before.

To realise all this one must in fancy place oneself in the condition of exaggerated susceptibility to nervous excitement that results from the intensity of the light, together with the climate, and the unusual degree of hardship. All this produces the greater effect because one has to do one’s work in solitude and loneliness, and is cut off from all interchange of ideas with one’s fellows.

Here, where the flora makes so poor a display, the fauna is abundant. What a sight it affords for the ornithologists!

Amongst the herds of zebras our European stork together with its smaller African cousin, the Abdim stork, is stalking in hundreds over the plain hunting for locusts. In company with the storks I saw also great flocks of the handsome crested crane engaged in the same occupation. Or they rose in heavy flocks over the valleys with loud and strangely discordant cries. Under the scanty shadows of the mimosas the splendid giant bustards take their stand at midday, erect, solemn, stiff-necked. At this time they are not very wary, but in the coolness of the morning and in the evening hours they soon get away to a safe distance, either running with their quick mincing step, or spreading their strong pinions for a short flight along the ground. Their smaller relative, Otis gindiana, Oust., rose before me in the air, often throwing somersaults on the wing like a tumbler pigeon. There is hardly any other bird of its size that has such a mastery of flight. Sea-eagles circled by the margin of the lake uttering their beautiful clear-sounding cries. Heedless of their presence thousands of splendid rose-red flamingoes soared up into the deep blue dome of the sky, or lined the margin of Nakuro, like a garland of living lake-roses, in company with great flocks of ducks, geese, and waterside birds of many kinds. Out of the clumps of acacias, and from between the thickets of ‘msuaki bush by the lake, guinea fowl and francolins rise, strung out in clattering flying lines, and in the morning hours handsome sandfowl that have come from far-off regions of the plateau sail by the margin of the lake. Altogether an overwhelmingly rich picture of warmly pulsating life and activity! The sight of it all is indeed quite capable of impressing one with the idea of flocks of wild creatures that have been completely tamed; and once this idea has suggested itself, the impression is so strong that for many minutes one can believe in it!

Amidst all this wealth of “wild” life, which here seems hardly to deserve the name of “wild,” it is much easier to understand how primitive man in other continents gradually secured domestic animals for his use, from the vast range of choice thus presented to him.

But a strange feeling comes over the observer when he remembers that out of all this wealth of animal life the African has never been able to link one single creature permanently to himself. He obtained his cattle and also his goats and sheep from Asia. The camel may be left out of account, for its connection with the human race is lost in the mystery of primitive times. We may say that the fauna of Africa has not given a single species to the group of our domestic animals. It is sad and humiliating to reflect that the men of to-day cannot accomplish what was done in the dim past—granted that it took endless ages in the doing.

There were times, as I have said, when I could not get rid of this impression of tame herds of animals. And this was all in a land, and a district, that left one nothing to desire in the way of primitive wildness. What, then, must it have been in early days when man was not yet waylaying the beasts of the wilderness, or at least had not yet employed the poisoned dart and spear, the pitfall and the snare? It must have been a veritable Garden of Eden. But here, far and wide, there is nothing to be seen of man, only something that evokes conjectures as to his former presence.

For suddenly from a height I notice a number of large mounds, formed of stones, such as only the hand of man could have built up. Under the secure protection of these masses of rock—rough hillocks of heaped up stones—men, who were once chiefs and elders of the Masai, sleep their everlasting sleep. Their resting-places have been so placed that they are not visible from any considerable distance, but are hidden away in the hollows of the ground. Out there in the wilderness, beneath the bright blue sky, these simple old monuments speak to me most impressively of the mighty harmony of everlasting change. As chance will have it, I find not far from the graves a human skull shining brightly in the sunlight and resting on a projecting rock. It must have lain here very long, as if keeping a look out on the old tomb of ol ‘loiboni, the departed “wizards” of the Masai. The empty eye-holes stare at the ancient grave.

But this symbol of the least is not obedient to the spell of death that whispers here all night long, for it has had to give shelter and protection to the rearing up of new life. As my hand grasps the skull, now brittle with decay, a family of mice takes to flight from inside of it. They had set up their home in this bony palace, and built their nest there.

And as if the Masai, resting probably for centuries under these heaps of stone, had left their herds to me, once more there surges around me this sea of animals. Near at hand they are sharply defined against the ground, but farther off in the glittering light they grow indefinite. How the whole flood of life contrasts with the grim volcanic barrenness of the landscape!

At this moment my impression of vast shepherd-guarded herds is deepened by the sudden appearance of some spotted hyenas, scattering among the volcanic pebble beds, and then running away over the plain, and seeming to play the part of the shepherds’ dogs.

But where are the herdsmen of all these herds? Immediately there comes an answer to my question. Yonder, by the margin of the lake, in the distance, I see little wreaths of smoke rising. The idea they give me of herdsmen on the watch is to be quickly dissipated by a report, not a loud one, followed by puffs of powder-smoke that vanish quickly in the air. The shooting does not disturb the animals that surround me. But then the report is hardly audible, the little puffs of smoke barely perceptible to the eye. I must find out who is disturbing the peace. It is perhaps a caravan making for the Victoria Nyanza. For we are upon the new “road” to the lake—a road which is indeed still in the region of projects, but which soon will be plainly marked with railway metal.

The smoke puffs appear at markedly regular intervals and as quickly disappear. I cannot understand it. For a long time I keep my attention anxiously fixed on these proceedings, all the while hurrying towards this remarkable apparition. At last my field-glasses enable me to descry a man, who from time to time drops on one knee to take aim.

What in the world is he after?

As we draw closer, I am extremely surprised at seeing that the man does not allow himself to be in the least disturbed in his proceedings. Now his bullets begin to whistle unpleasantly near me. I fire in the air, once, twice.... Now his attention is attracted, and simultaneously I perceive a number of dark objects near the marksman. They seem to be his companions, black men, and squatting on the ground.

From the background there emerge now great numbers of such objects—it must be a large caravan.

The distance between us is diminished so that one can see plainly.... Now we can shout to each other.... At last I learn that the hunter is marching with his long caravan of bearers to the great lake. He has been putting out all his exertions to shoot some wild animals. But although he has many surprisingly interesting hunting adventures to tell of as the result of his three months’ march from the coast to this point, that task seems to have been beyond his powers! With a well-aimed shot he has stretched on the ground just one single dwarf gazelle!!

After shaking hands, he bewails the fact that he has a rifle that shoots so baldly. He says its system is absolutely worthless, especially against wild animals.

Our fleeting acquaintance is broken off in a few minutes. He is the first newly arrived European that I have met for a long time, but I have not too much sympathy for this class of sportsmen. So my new acquaintance goes off, still blazing away freely. He has been urged on by my information that his camping and watering, place for the day is a long way off, and that the borders of the lake seem to me to be fever-haunted.

A queer kind of shepherd, in truth, for these wild herds! I fear he would be very like a wolf, or rather—to be zoologically and geographically precise—a leopard, in sheep’s clothing!

Again I was alone; the disturber of my peace had not frightened away the animals. So, as I was regaining strength rapidly, I decided to halt here for a few days. This meant having to provide for oneself in the most primitive way, for I was short of some of the most necessary provisions and supplies. But in such conditions the decision was not difficult to take. I shall not easily forget the days I spent there.

The plateau of the volcanic lakes Naiwasha, Elementeita and Nakuro, standing nearly 6,000 feet above the sea, presents to the spectator all the austere, stern, and strange charm peculiar to the Masai uplands.

Some ten years have gone by since that expedition of mine, and all is now changed. Up to that time only the natives had lived in these districts. Few Europeans had penetrated into these solitudes; but now a track of iron rails links the Indian Ocean with the Central African Lake basin, and the shrill whistle of the locomotive sounds in the equatorial wilderness. Wherever the influence of the railway extends, the Masai, whom I then learned to know, have disappeared. Reservations have been assigned to them, like the Indians of North America.

My former companion on my travels, Alfred Kaiser, describes, not without a certain feeling of sadness, how he saw them once more, not long, ago, under these new conditions, already to a great extent changed by European influence—and changed in a way that was not at all to their advantage. Using, instead of the beautiful Masai dialects, some mangled fragments of English, they scornfully refused objects of barter that were eagerly coveted ten years ago, and insisted on coined money. They no longer wore their native ornaments, but were dressed in European second-hand clothes. In a word they were stripped of all the wild and primitive beauty that had once distinguished them.

It is a hard fate, when a rude aboriginal people is all of a sudden brought into touch with those of a high degree of civilisation.

As the former lord of the land5 was deprived of his rights, so the same fate, more or less, befalls the splendid animal world that lends its charm to these solitudes.

But then—ten years ago! I had been given back to life after sharp suffering, and all that I was now allowed to see in such rich abundance spoke to me in a more than ordinarily impressive language, a language that seemed to me to have an enduring charm.

And how clearly must this language have sounded in the times of the primitive past!

So we may here attempt a picture of the wild life of the lake margin in former days, on the lines of the sketches I have already traced out of the life and activity of the wild herds of the plateau, as I still could see them....

Out of the many memories of those days, that still work on me like magic, there is one above all that has a special meaning, for me: “Elelescho!”

But what is “Elelescho”? the reader will ask. “Elelescho”6 is the name of a peculiar plant, perhaps it would be more correct to say a bush, that has in many ways set its mark on the flora in the very heart of the Masai region. Ranges of hills covered with silvery-leafed Elelescho, the spicy smell of Elelescho, the water at the camping place redolent of Elelescho—and also, in consequence, tea, coffee, cocoa tasting of Elelescho—that is a memory that remains fixed firmly in one’s thoughts of this home of the wild herds and of the Masai. It Was these disappearing nomads who gave the bush its beautiful name.

Possibly the musical sound of the name has not a little to do with reconciling us in memory to the plant. For the bush itself has in process of time monotonous effect not very to the senses, but for this very reason all the stronger and more enduring. Its character is connected by strong links of memory with our experiences of those days, and the sound of its name awakes rose-coloured recollections. For just as it is not given to man to remember exactly the nature of intense bodily pains, so fancy, looking backwards, kindly blots out much that was hard and little that was pleasant in the life we have led. Thus it is that this strange bush, with its silver-grey leaves and aromatic odour, is capable, as hardly anything else is, of awakening in the mind of the traveller a kind of nostalgia—nostalgia for the wilderness, to which he is drawn by so much of beauty and of hardship. We have gained very little by learning that botanists recognise our plant as one of the Compositæ, and name it Tarchonantus camphoratus, L. It is to be found also in other parts of Africa; and Professor Fritsch reported, as early as 1863, that he found it growing in Griqualand, then still an unsettled country, where it was called the “Mohatla.” It would be a pity if its beautifully sounding Masai name were not preserved for future times, and I must do my best to save “Elelescho” from such oblivion.

One must have learned the word with its sweet-sounding pronunciation from the lips of a proud, handsome, slender Masai warrior in order to understand how so seemingly slight a thing can imbue one’s impression of a whole land.

The Elelescho is as prominent in those regions as the oak and beech or fir in Germany, or as the juniper, the heath, and the broom, and has the same influence on the landscape. But it has a greater and deeper influence upon the imagination, because it so dominates those solitudes, that to him who has long travelled in them the mere memory of it evokes a vivid picture of their once familiar aspect. The strong scent of the Elelescho plant leads the Masai to wear the leaves of the bush as a decoration round their ears for the sake of its perfume. It belongs thus to the plants that because of their scent are used as ornaments by warriors and maidens: “Il-käk ooitaa ‘l muran oo ‘n—— doiye ‘l—— orôpili.”7 So there pass before us Masai maidens, and Masai warriors decked with Elelescho leaves and Elelescho branches, and received with sympathetic smiles by the caravan leaders—who, however, unlike the Masai, think very little of it. Very simple and naïve are the relations of these natives with nature around them. Only the obvious, the actually useful, comes into their thoughts, and for my black companions the Elelescho always recalls only memories of poor desert regions of the waste—regions in which they must often endure hunger and suffer many hardships. Far different is the influence of the Elelescho region on my feelings. For me this bush is symbolically linked with the plunge into uninhabited solitudes, with self-liberation from the pressure of the civilisation of modern men and all its haste and hurry.

We wish to feel once more, and to give ourselves up fully to, the spell of the Elelescho—the charm of the Elelescho thickets, that are also in South Africa in the lands about the Cape the characteristic mark of the velt, now so lonely, but once alive with hundreds of thousands of wild herds.

A wonderful night has come on.

The moon—in a few days it will be at the full—sheds its beams in glittering splendour over Lake Nakuro.

The little camp is soon wrapped in silence. The weary bearers sink into deep and well-earned slumber. Only the sentries, pushed far out, are on the alert. It was but a few days since the rebel Wakamassia hillmen were a source of danger to us, and nightly precautions are not yet forgotten. The moonbeams flicker ghost-like over the lake. Night-jars give forth their songs close to the camp all round us. Strange sounds and cries ring out from the throats of the waterfowl on the lake margins, and not far away one hears the snorting of the hippopotami. Jackals and spotted hyenas prowl round the camp, betraying themselves by their voices. The hyena’s howl and jackal’s wailing bark mingle strangely with the deep bass note of a bull-hippopotamus. Here in the wilderness there is hardly any sound that is louder than the mighty voice of these giants of the water.8

A strange feeling came over me. Amid all the ever-varying sensations of the last year my capacity for enjoyment, my sensitiveness to outside impressions, had been developed and enhanced. A short time since I was between life and death, struggling with the treacherous infection of fever. Now I was well. I was breathing the air some three thousand feet higher than the place where I lay ill near Victoria Nyanza. I was again in a region whose vast volcanic solitudes contrasted strongly with its abundance of highly developed organic life, and exercised a strange influence upon me.

Is there such a place as Europe? Is it possible that thousands of miles away there is a centre of civilisation whose teeming millions would fain imprint their image on the whole earth, and even lay covetous hands on this far-off wilderness, and that in time this must happen?

A world of which I myself am a unit! How strange that I can delight so deeply in all this wild charm! And how quickly the wishes of men change! A while ago, in the long nights of fever, I had but one desire—that my heart, my heart alone, should not be buried in a foreign soil, but be taken back to the Fatherland.

And now, only a few weeks after my recovery, how different seems to me all I may hope for from Fate, and how much more complex, how much more difficult to accomplish!

I yield myself up entirely to the spell of the wilderness, to the mood of the night.

That was ten years ago, before the Europeans had banished it—when it ached on the senses like the nocturne of some great tone-poet. But I know well that to-day it is no longer in existence; Lake Nakuro is now only a lake like any other, and the railway whistle wakes its echoes.

That night the spell must have been exceptionally strong. It seemed to me as though I were under some charm, as if I were carried back into the far-off times. There came before my mind much of what the lake had seen in the long vanished past. The lands around me heaved and quaked. Mighty earth-shaping forces were doing their work. I seemed to see before my eyes what happened here in primeval times—how volcanic forces, strange, boundless, and terrible, had built up and given form to the country around me here, destroying all living things, and yet at the same time preparing the conditions for the hotly pulsating waves of life of later days. In my mind I saw pass before me wondrous mighty forms of the animal world of the past, long since extinct. Then—suddenly I started up. What was that?

A loud trumpeting ran in my ears! Elephants! Were there still extant such herds of elephants as those that I saw coming down there to the lake to drink, rolling themselves in the mud of its banks, and openly making friends with the hippopotami? Just as in the daytime I had noticed the different kinds of antelopes and the zebras, so here I saw again the elephants and hippopotami living their life close together, moving round or beside each other without fear or hesitation. The herd, numbering many hundred heads, was guided to its drinking-place silently and slowly by its aged leader, a female elephant of most exceptional size. Many young elephants were there in company with their mothers. Some very little ones, only a few weeks old, played with their comrades, or knowingly imitated the movements of the older animals in the water, while the old ones took care to prevent the tender young creatures from taking any harm.

But it all seemed somehow impossible! Veterans among the most experienced black elephant-hunters had assured me that such huge herds were not to be met with. And if I saw aright in the shimmering moonlight, what a great mass of hippopotami were moving about there before me! And now, paying, no attention to the elephants that were peacefully bathing farther out in the muddy water, they clambered on to the land, and began to graze like cows on the bank among some more of the elephants. It was exactly the same friendly relation that I had seen between the dwarf gazelles and the zebras during the day. Could I be only dreaming? Such a multitude of huge creatures here close to my camp—it could hardly be a reality!

And now I perceived that a second herd of elephants, some hundreds strong, was approaching the water. In a straight line these still more giant-like colossi came down to the lake margin—all of them, as I now clearly perceived, bulls with mighty tusks, and amongst them some quite enormous tuskers, obviously patriarchs of the herd, and carrying some hundreds of pounds’ weight of ivory that glittered afar in the moonlight.

The two herds greeted each other with their curious cries, difficult to describe, and then the newcomers began to bathe and drink.

My attention was especially arrested by some of the elephants, clearly visible in the moonlight, keeping apart from the rest. Standing together in pairs they caressed each other with their trunks, while the enormous ears which are such an imposing decoration of the African elephant stood out from their heads, so as to make them look larger than ever.

My wonder increases! Numerous herds of giraffes, hundreds strong, come down to the lake, and this, too, not far from the elephants, and without any fear.

And now there is again a new picture! A herd of innumerable buffaloes. With their great formidable heads turned watchfully towards the rest of the crowd, they too are coming for a refreshing bath. Their numbers still increase. It is a sight recalling, surpassing even, the descriptions given by the first travellers over the velt regions of Cape Colony.

How did all this accord with the reports I had received of the scarcity of elephants? with the destruction of the buffalo by the cattle plague? With my own previous experiences? The most authoritative of my informants had assured me that in this district the elephant was to be found very rarely, the buffalo hardly ever!

Suddenly with mysterious swiftness the night is gone, and the day breaks. I search for and find the tracks of my giant guests of the night. I had made no mistake. Monstrous footprints are sharply impressed in the mud, the ground looks as it had been ploughed up, and in the midst of the plain, not very far from the lake, there are actually hundreds of mighty elephants standing near some ol-girigiri acacias. As I begin to watch them, they suddenly become restless. In their noiseless way they make off at an extremely quick rate, and soon disappear behind the nearest ridge.

Round about me I see herds of zebras, hartebeests, and wild animals of all kinds in vaster numbers even than those yesterday. The deep bellow of the wild buffalo breaks upon my ear. I can see long-necked towering giraffes in the acacia thickets. The snorting of numerous hippopotami sounds from the lake. Some of these burly fellows are sunning themselves on its margin; and quite close to them several rhinoceroses are grazing peacefully in the midst of their uncouth cousins.

I am surprised, too, at seeing a troop of lions disappearing into the bush, after having made a visit to the water. They are so close to me that I can plainly see by the shape of their bodies that they are going home after having had an abundant repast.

The behaviour of my people puzzles me. I had no opportunity for questioning them as to why they were not more impressed by this unexpected spectacle, for my attention was suddenly arrested by the appearance of a lengthy caravan of bearers, that seemed as if it had emerged before my eyes from the trampled ground. There is new life and movement among the herds of wild animals. Slowly, defiantly, or in swift-footed fear, each according to its kind, all these wonderful creatures seek safety from the approaching crowd.

A robust negro marches at the head of the caravan. He carries a white flag inscribed all over with texts from the Koran. Hundreds of bearers come steadily in. Each carries a load of nearly ninety pounds’ weight, besides his cooking gear, sleeping-mat, gun and powder-horn. At regular intervals grave-looking, bearded Arabs march among the bearers. Two stately figures, riding upon asses and surrounded by an armed escort, are evidently the chiefs, and a great drove of asses with pack-saddles laden with elephant tusks brings up the rear. Very quickly the numerous party establish their camp, and I now remark that hundreds of the bearers are also laden with ivory. It is clearly a caravan of Arab ivory-traders.

After the usual greetings—“Sabal kher” (“God bless thee”), and “Salaam aleikum,” questions are asked in the Swahili language: “Habari ghani?” (“What news?”) I now learn that the party of travellers set out some two years ago from Pangani on the coast to trade for ivory in the Masai country. I am surprised to hear the Arabs tell how, although theirs is one of the first caravans that have made the attempt, they have penetrated far into the inhospitable and perilous lands of the Masai. Their journey has been greatly delayed, for they have had to fight many battles with the Wachenzi, the aborigines of the districts through which they marched. “But Allah was with us, and the Unbelievers had the worst of it! Allah is great, and Mohammed is his prophet!”

Every one set busily to work. In the turn of a hand the camp was surrounded with a thorny zereba hedge, and made secure.

And now I had personal experience of what has passed, times without number, in the broad lands of the Masai;—armed detachments from the caravan started on raids for far-off districts. The timid Wandorobo, that strange subject tribe of the Masai, brought more and more ivory to the camp to sell it to the traders, after long and obstinate bargaining. It was remarkable how clever were the people of the caravan in dealing with these timid wild folk, and how well they knew how to gain their confidence.9 This confidence, however, was not made use of in trade and barter for the advantage of the natives. But thanks to the methods and ways of managing the natives, as the traders understood them, we saw that the wild folk were quite satisfied, and this was the main point.

But what patience is required in trade of this kind! A white man could never develop such Oriental patience. Again and again a tusk would be endlessly bargained over, till at last, often after days of chaffering, it passed into the possession of the caravan. The natives were of course bent on getting the tusks, sooner or later, into the camp. At the very outset they had sent in a most exact description of them, and then envoys from the caravan had to go and inspect them, often at a distance of several days’ march from the camp.

Every day a great number of Masai warriors appeared in the camp. Men belonging to many kraals, owners of great herds of cattle, camped near the lake. There were not infrequent skirmishes, especially at night time. The young warriors, the Moran, made attempts at plunder, and were beaten off with broken heads. But, on the whole, this hardly disturbed the good understanding. “It is their testuri (custom),” thought the experienced and fatalistic coast folk, and they accepted it as an unavoidable incident of the trade. But festivals were also arranged, with dance and song. In the still moonlit nights the strange chant rang out in a high treble far over the plain, and sounded in the rocky hills, and festivity and rejoicing reigned among the warriors, the girls, and the women.

But by day one saw their busy life displayed, all the bucolic poetry of grazing herds of cattle with their spear-armed herdsmen. There was a great deal to be done, and in each and every task the Masai girls and women showed themselves, like the men, excellent guardians and attendants of their herds.

In the neighbourhood of the Masai kraals the wild animals of the plain mingled freely with the tame cattle of the Masai, knowing well that the Masai folk would not shoot them. The wild animals were exposed only to the attacks of the Wandorobo. But these latter bore themselves very shyly in the presence of their over-lords, the Masai, and went off to far distant hunting grounds, so that the wild animals were hardly ever disturbed by a hunter.

The young Masai warriors also began to devote themselves to hunting for ivory. With great courage, and often with no small display of dexterity, they killed a large number of elephants, allured by the high prices offered by the caravans. But they kept the beautiful tusks carefully hidden, buried in the earth till the moment when they had successfully arranged a sale. The buried treasure was easy to conceal. At the place where the tusks were put away the grass was set on fire and burned up over a considerable area, and then no eye could distinguish the slightest indication of the buried treasure.

The Elmoran also made use of a method of hunting which is employed in other parts of Africa, namely, to slip quietly up to an elephant, and with a single powerfully delivered sword-cut sever the tendon Achilles. But few indeed were daring enough to attempt this, and these were strong, brave, and well-trained warriors. Such an exploit won for them high respect among their comrades of the clan.

While the Masai warriors thus took their share in elephant-killing, and the Wandorobo stuck to their long, trusted poisoned darts and poisoned spears, the caravan folk attacked the elephants with powder and iron bullets,10 and slew whole hecatombs of them.

“Nowadays,” the leader of the caravan told me, “the chase is easier and less dangerous, and your firearms also give the man from the coast the power of hunting and killing the Fihl (elephant). For example, you know, sir, that my half-brother, Seliman bin Omari, is not a practised hunter. And yet, believe me, he and his people have brought down many, many elephants.”

But his banker on the coast, the Hindoo Radda Damja, certainly never hears one word of any elephant being killed by Seliman’s people:

“No one is so clever as he is at knowing nothing about elephants when questions are asked. The ivory is always something traded for with the natives, far, far away in the interior,” he adds, with a cunning wink. “The main point is that we all get pembe (ivory), and he gets plenty of it! I would like to work the business as he does, but, sir, I am not so clever in preparing amulets, and moreover, I don’t know as much as he does of the ways of the elephant.

“But it’s a pity that in all parts of the country the ivory is becoming very scarce, so one has to be going always farther into the interior, and one must try to find new ivory districts.”

Thus my Arab informant talked a long time with me. He told me much that was interesting and much that was new to me. He told me of caravans that had been massacred, cut off to the last man by the natives in remote districts: and again of caravans that had been not one or two,—no, as long as six years on the march, that had buried a lot of ivory and gradually got it down to the coast. Time counts for nothing here, for the people—that is to say, those who are not slaves—receive only the one lump sum agreed upon for the journey, no matter how long it lasts. His friends, with caravans mustering many hundreds, had carried hundreds and hundreds of barrels of gunpowder into the interior, they had sought everywhere for new districts abounding in ivory, and the result had been the slaughter of the elephants on all sides. Nevertheless he had not much to tell me of men having enriched themselves by this trade. However, this did not apply to the traders on the coast, who advanced the money. These lent money to the caravan leaders, who went into the interior, at the high rate of interest usual in the East, and thus became rich men. They had, of course, also many losses. It happened not seldom that one of their debtors was “lost” in the interior, which means that he simply did not come back, but chose to pass the rest of his life in exile. And in that case it would be a difficult matter for the creditor to take proceedings against him.

Then my informant told me how many of the elephant hunters still living had been carrying on their business already for a long time before any Europeans whatever thought of making a prolonged stay in the country. He told me also much that was interesting about the old trade routes extending far through Africa, and even to the Congo. He had friends and relatives who had already traversed these routes many times, and journeyed from the east coast even to the Congo, long before any European traveller. Many of the people of his caravan were able to tell from memory each day’s journey as far as the Congo, and give exact information about the chiefs who held sway in each district, and the possibility of getting supplies of various kinds of provisions, such as maize, millet, bananas, or other products of the country.

I cannot exactly say how long he had talked with me about elephants and elephant-hunting, about the ivory trade, and many other things. I only know one thing—that after some time his talk became more and more difficult for me to understand, that I strove in vain against an ever-increasing weariness, and that at last I saw neither the Arab nor the caravan—in a word, saw nothing more, felt nothing more.

I fell into a deep sleep in which, in my dreams, I had a lively argument with some Europeans, who would not believe so many elephants, buffaloes, and other wild animals had formerly been here, and who kept on objecting strongly that it was impossible that all this could have been the case so short a time ago.

When I woke up again I found myself in my lounging-chair, a primitive piece of furniture of my own construction. My black servant stood before me, and asked me if I would not rather go to bed.

I rubbed my eyes—it had all been a dream, then; the spell of Elelescho must have inspired me with it. How foolish to yield to this spell! But men will perhaps so yield to it when all this has become “historical” and the Masai and their lives and deeds have, like the Redskins of America, found their Fenimore Cooper.

Then may the spell of the Elelescho exert its rightful power; then may it make famous the slender, sinewy, noble Masai ol-morani as, amidst his fair ones, his “doiye,”11 he leads the song-accompanied dance as he goes out to war, and reigns the free lord of the wilderness! But to-day he bears on his brow the significant mark of an inexorable fate—that of the last of the Mohicans.

The spell of the Elelescho has departed from Lake Nakuro, once so remote from the world.

The lake is no longer remote.

Iron railway lines link it with the Indian Ocean. Vanished from it is the spell that I once felt both waking and sleeping; gone is the poetry of the elephant herds, the Masai, the Wandorobo, and the caravan life in all its aspects; gone all that I saw there. The traveller, if he would learn to know the primitive life and ways, whether of men or of the animal world, if he would know the primeval harmony that speaks to him in an overpowering language peculiar to itself, must press on into the wilderness farther away from these tracks. This harmony, whose special character is day by day disappearing, day by day is in an ever increasing measure destroyed, cannot be recalled under the new, the coming system, the system that abandons itself to restlessness—that, in a word, which we call modern industry, modern civilisation.