THE HARTEBEEST AND ZEBRA 



patience and endurance, come up to within two hundred 

 yards of it, which distance is not very great to a man 

 armed with modern, long-distance guns. The young bull 

 hartebeests often fight with each other in the most deter- 

 mined way, although perhaps not as frequently as the 

 wildebeests do. I once shot a hartebeest which had evi- 

 dently been in some kind of a desperate fight, for his left 

 horn had been broken, but had not fallen off at the time; 

 afterwards it had knit again in such a way that it pointed 

 straight downward back of the ear, instead of upward and 

 then backward. 



As the traveler goes up country from Mombasa he 

 may, if he has luck, see a good many animals from the 

 track, such as giraffes, rhinos, wildebeests, zebras and 

 even lions, but it is absolutely certain that he will see herds 

 of hartebeests on both sides of the railroad before he 

 reaches Nairobi. From my own observation, I believe it 

 is correct to say that in the last three or four years the 

 vast numbers of this antelope have greatly diminished. 

 Whether this is a sign that the Cook's hartebeest is 

 being threatened with extermination, or if it only shows 

 his cunning in wandering over to the game preserve, as 

 the wildebeests are so fond of doing, I cannot say; but 

 the enormous herds, years ago always found on the 

 Athi Plains, for instance, have certainly perceptibly de- 

 creased. 



During one of the trips on the northeastern parts of 

 these plains we very nearly lost our whole caravan. It 

 happened in the following way: 



We had marched that day somewhat over twenty 

 miles, mostly over open plains, and exposed to the hot 



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