In his account of Count Teleki’s expedition, Lieutenant Von Hohnel gives a short description of the Rendili, which he compiled from hearsay, which, as far as it goes, is remarkably correct. Von Hohnel is a very exact and trustworthy observer; his maps, for instance, being wonderfully accurate. I carried with me a map issued in 1898 by the Intelligence Department of the War Office, which contained several inaccuracies and was therefore unreliable, and consequently useless. Unfortunately, I did not at that time possess one of Von Hohnel’s maps, or we should have been saved many a weary tramp. In 1893 Mr. Chanler found the Rendili encamped at Kome, and stayed with them two or three days. He appears to have found them overbearing and intolerant of the presence of strangers, and inclined to be actively hostile. He made an extremely liberal estimate of their numbers, as he says that they cannot amount to less than two hundred thousand, and that he had heard that if the Rendili were camped in one long line, it would take six hours’ march to go down the line from one end to the other. He considered, moreover, that a large force was necessary if a prolonged visit was to be made to the Rendili; but we found that our small party was quite sufficient for our purpose. Since his visit the tribe had suffered severely from small-pox, which may have curbed their exuberant spirits somewhat, as we found them, apart from a few little peculiarities hereafter described, an amiable and gentle people if treated justly; very suspicious, but perfectly friendly once their confidence was gained. We did nothing in the way of trade that morning, but spent most of the time in satisfying our neglected appetites by regaling ourselves upon boiled mutton, washed down by draughts of camel’s milk. Afterwards we held a consultation to decide on the best way of disposing of our goods. To our great disappointment we learnt that ivory was out of the question, as we were informed a Swahili caravan, which had accompanied a white man from Kismayu, had been up some two months before, and had bought up all the available ivory.[14] We decided, therefore, to invest in sheep, and proceeded to open our bales of cloth, wire, and beads, in readiness for the market. I returned to the village at which George and I had camped with the safari on our arrival the preceding evening, taking with me half a dozen men and some cloth, wire, etc. When I arrived there everybody was away bringing in the flocks, so I was compelled to wait for a while till they returned.