Hammond Innes · 1977 · overland
Hammond Innes's 1977 novel, written after his own journey to Lake Rudolf. A television director arrives in a Kenya wrecked by war and drought, where the government has contracted a hunter to cull the elephant herds for meat. His old friend and rival intends to stop him, and the argument is carried north into the Rift Valley by both men with rifles.
- 1Nairobi
At a bullet-scarred game lodge, the first wildlife conference since the war breaks up in confrontation between Alex Kirby-Smith, contracted to cull elephants, and Cornelius van Delden, who means to prevent it.
- 2Marsabit
North through country emptied by drought and fighting, past Marsabit toward the closed districts, the culling convoy and the men following it move into a landscape where the herds are concentrating on the last water.
- 3Mount Kulal
On Mount Kulal above the eastern shore, the pursuit turns into a scramble up a gorge with armed men behind - the sequence the book is remembered for, and the point at which the argument stops being about policy.
- 4Porr
At the rock hill of Porr on the shore of Lake Rudolf, in territory that was forbidden ground, Tait looks for the neolithic dwellings he came for - and the two old friends settle their quarrel among the last of the elephants.