XI EXHILARATING SPORT 213 



Personally, in the old days when giraffes were 

 very plentiful, and when, with the thoughtless opti- 

 mism of youth, one failed to realise that they would 

 ever become scarce, and when, moreover, a large 

 supply of meat was constantly required to feed one's 

 native followers, I always looked upon a good, reck- 

 less, breakneck gallop after a herd of giraffes as 

 a most exhilarating experience. The giant quad- 

 rupeds looked so splendid as they dashed along at 

 tremendous speed, with their long black tails 

 screwed up over their backs. Nothing checked 

 their pace, as they tore their way through dense 

 thorn jungles, or crashed through the branches of 

 forest trees, ever and anon dipping their lofty heads 

 with the most unerring judgment so as just to pass 

 beneath some horizontal limb, which almost seemed 

 to graze their shoulders. One took lots of chances 

 in giraffe -hunting, and got many a heavy fall 

 when galloping ventre a terre across open ground 

 full of ant-bear holes, or deep sun -cracks hidden 

 from view by thick tussocky grass, and when one 

 saw the branches of two neighbouring wait-a-bit 

 thorn bushes, each covered with hundreds of little 

 hard black hooks, suddenly close together with a 

 swish behind the disappearing stern of a giraffe, 

 it needed considerable resolution to follow in its 

 wake. 



I have often had the greater part of my shirt — 

 for I never wore a coat — torn off and my bare arms 

 very severely scratched whilst chasing giraffes 

 through thick wait-a-bit thorn scrub. I have had 

 some heavy falls too, and once knocked one of my 

 front teeth clean out of the socket, through gallop- 

 ing into an ant-eater's hole and falling on my heavy 

 ten-bore rifle. On another occasion my horse rolled 

 over on me, and cracked the tibia of my right leg, 

 so that some of the serum ran out and formed a 

 lump on the bone. However, I never hurt myself 



