CHAPTER X 



Pookoo Antelope — ^Shootlng Lechwe — Up the Cliobe — Strange Experi- 

 ence with Elephant — Canoe Trip through Marsh Lands ot Chobe 

 — Buffalo — Island Inhabitants — Palm Wine — Situtunga Antelopes 

 — " Umbaracarungwe " Island — Dense Thorn-bush. 



Thus, towards the end of August, I once more found 

 myself on the southern bank of the Chobe, about 

 twenty miles to the west of its junction with the 

 Zambesi. It was dusk when we reached the river, 

 and too dark to shoot anything that evening, although 

 I wanted meat. Early the next morning, however, 

 I knocked over a solitary old pookoo ram ; where- 

 upon I called a halt, and my hungry Kafirs, lighting 

 a fire, roasted and ate the greater portion of it on 

 the spo't. As the name of pookoo probably conveys 

 but a very slight idea to the majority of my readers, 

 I will here say a few words about this, one of the 

 least-known of all South African antelopes. 



The only place where I ever met with this species 

 was in a small tract of country extending along the 

 southern bank of the Chobe for about seventy miles 

 westward from its junction with the Zambesi. They 

 are never found at more than 200 or 300 yards from 

 the river, and are usually to be seen cropping the short 

 grass along the water's edge, or lying in the shade 

 of the trees and bushes scattered over the alluvial 

 flats which have been formed here and there by the 



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