THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



If the hunter starts out from Nairobi, going by way of 

 the government station Fort Hall, he can begin his shoot- 

 ing within an hour after he has left the hotel in Nairobi 

 with his " safari," for all along the route are seen the 

 zebra, Coke's hartebeest, Grant's and Thomson's gazelles, 

 many of the smaller antelopes, and sometimes even wilde- 

 beests. Then when, near Fort Hall, the Tana River is 

 reached, the safari may follow that stream down for an 

 hour or two to some fine camping grounds among large 

 mimosa trees, and here the sportsman will be able to shoot 

 hippos and crocodiles to his heart's content. 



Then continuing the northward march, the caravan 

 passes the fort, or *' boma," the native name for all mili- 

 tary and government stations, where the hunter generally 

 pays his respects to the Provincial Commissioner, who 

 may require him to show his game license and the special 

 permit to proceed farther, as the Kenia-Laikipia is one of 

 the " closed " districts, for which such a permit is a neces- 

 sity. From the boma the safari proceeds along a fairly 

 good native path, which in a few days' time leads up among 

 the foothills of the magnificent, snowclad Kenia, which 

 rears its domelike peak over eighteen thousand feet high. 

 Now the sportsman may at any time come across fresh ele- 

 phant tracks, or meet with buffalos, eland, bush buck, with 

 luck, even the coveted bongo, impalla, water buck, and in a 

 day or two more with the beautiful oryx beisa, wild dogs, 

 possibly giraffes, plenty of rhinos, lions, and leopards, while 

 higher up on the foothills the hunter may bag with ease his 

 allowed number of the beautiful colobus and other fur 

 monkeys, if monkey killing does not seem to him too much 

 like *' murder." So day after day the party may go on, 



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