The Journals of Josloy/Nalil 3, 5676
Rar’s telef returned during the night. I guess they’re very friendly animals despite any fear we have at their size. In fact, it brought a whole herd of telefs with it. What to do with thirteen telefs is a question we cannot answer. Each of us rode our own telef today once we worked up the courage to do so, and we made very good progress, easily traveling as far as we did when we had horses. We could have all ridden together, but we all wanted the thrill of controlling our own beasts. The telefs seem to have the additional benefit of scaring away large predators. I noticed several large cats keeping their distance. They weren’t jekets, but I’m not sure what they were. Other herbivores, such as deer and etagas tend to gravitate toward the telefs. It’s safer for them since the large predators stay away.
I noticed the telefs require a very large amount of food and water. If anyone ever tried to stable a telef or keep it fenced in, they’d need to provide several trees’ worth of plants for it to eat every day. The frequent feeding was the main thing slowing us down today.
We saw a small stampede of etagas today. As we continued west, the large herd of etagas was following us. I think a large predator, probably one of the cats I saw, attacked an etaga, causing the rest to panic. They ran our direction. Fortunately, they give the telefs a wide berth, even when stampeding. There aren’t too many animals that want to get within range of the large tusks and heavy feet.
Even while sitting atop a telef, Rar is quite capable with his spear. He managed to spear an etaga tonight. Although etagas prefer to maintain their distance from people, they are not afraid of us while we’re on the telefs. I am not sure if the telefs are aware that we killed the etaga, or if they merely consider its death to be a normal casualty of life in the savannah. I would think most animals would shy away from people when they learn we kill and eat animals. When we made camp tonight, the telefs did not roam very far. I expect we’ll be riding them for quite some time.
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