About 11 p.m. held up by rhinoceros moving about on left of road, breaking undergrowth and branches close ahead. Could not see whether he meant to charge or not, and there was a moment’s suspense on that account, but eventually he moved off quietly. Later, at first railway crossing over road, below a great dark mango tree on the river-side, the leading scout caught a glint of the small, red glow of a dying fire. We halted and waited, but no sound was audible, though a man’s breathing could have almost been heard in the calm stillness. On venturing forward, a deserted fire, almost out, was found. Whoever lit it had used it and gone, but they had left a mark that would arouse suspicion. Such signs of the enemy’s presence were constantly being found. The moon rose at 10.30. Everything clear then, and our forms, moving stealthily along at wide intervals, showed dark on the dust-white road. Reached point on road overlooking railway about midnight and lay down in bush, each of the four comprising the party in turn keeping watch to detect any movement of enemy. Night passed quietly, stirred only by African sounds. Among the high trees on the river-bank, beyond the railway, monkeys yelled occasionally and snapped off dry branches as they swung from limb to limb. A solitary owl hoo-hooed away out in the distant darkness, and once or twice the weird clatter-ratchet of a hornbill, wakeful in the moonlight, like a barndoor fowl, broke the stillness. Sometimes, too, an animal of prey would betray its presence and its prowling: the deep blood-curdling howl of the hyena and the dog-like bark of the jackal at times awoke the silence, for one or two brief moments, ere, phantom-like, they were swallowed in the dark, fathomless pit of night, and lost on their onward trail. At daybreak, white morning mists came down over the bush-land and obscured everything; soon they rose again and cleared. Back from the roadside, in the bush, we made a small fire and warmed and cheered ourselves with a hot cup of tea. Later we returned pleasantly to camp, having joined in with the railway patrol, which came out along the line at daybreak some fifty strong. NAMANGA, _27th Feb., 1916_. [Sidenote: SEARCHING DIFFICULT COUNTRY]