THE BIG GAME OF AFRICA 



self actually measured some of the longest jumps I saw 

 an impala take and found that one young buck, which I 

 had slightly wounded, had leaped clear over a bush, the 

 highest point of which was five feet from the ground, ap- 

 parently without touching the leaves. I found that this 

 one leap measured exactly twenty-four feet and three 

 inches. The next bound of the same animal measured 

 nineteen feet four inches. I have heard of instances where 

 impalas have leaped as far as twenty-five and twenty-six 

 feet, which seems almost incredible for an animal of its 

 size. 



When a herd is suddenly startled, they go oflf in most 

 beautiful, gliding motions, and they can keep these up for 

 a great distance, racing over the ground at high speed. 

 When suddenly disturbed they often eject a certain sharp, 

 barklike sound, not unlike the cry of a wooing bush buck. 

 Impalas are hardly ever seen on the plains, and they also 

 avoid thick forests, being fond of a parklike country with 

 low scrub, as before mentioned. Once on the Laikipia 

 Plateau I succeeded in chasing an impala out of cover into 

 a large open space, when my " lion rider," Asgar, pursued 

 it on a swift hunting pony in the wildest gallop. Yet it 

 was utterly impossible for him to gain on the antelope 

 which, after a few minutes' flight, disappeared among a 

 little clump of bush. 



Like most of the African antelopes the vitality of the 

 impala is remarkable. On one of my marches to the gov- 

 ernment station at Rumuruti, where I wanted to visit a 

 British official, I wounded a young impala, which bounded 

 off like the wind in front of us. It was, indeed, as if 

 he had been shot out of a gun, and we all thought that I 



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