CH. VII] A BULL TOPI 155 



very spry and active, and looking like picket pins when 

 they stood up on end to survey us. T killed a nine-foot 

 python which had swallowed a rabbit. Game was not 

 plentiful, but we killed enough for the table. I shot a 

 wildebeest bull one day, having edged up to it on foot, 

 after missing it standing ; I broke it down with a bullet 

 through the hips as it galloped across my front at three 

 hundred yards. Kermit killed our first topi, a bull — a 

 beautiful animal, the size of a hartebeest, its glossy coat 

 with a satin sheen, varying from brown to silver and 

 purple. 



By the Guaso Nyero we halted for several days, and 

 we arranged to leave Mearns and Loring in a permanent 

 camp, so that they might seriously study and collect the 

 I birds and small mammals while the rest of us pushed 

 I where\'er we wished after the big game. The tents 

 were pitched, and the ox-waggons drawn up on the 

 I southern side of the muddy river, by the edge of a wide 

 j plain, on which we could see the game grazing as we 

 I walked around camp. The alluvial flats bordering the 

 ! river and some of tlie higher plains were covered with 

 I an open forest growth, the most common tree looking 

 exactly hke a giant sagc-biiish, thirty feet high ; and 

 there were tall aloes and cactus and flat-topped mimosa. 

 We found a wee hedgehog, with much white about it. 

 He would cuddle up in my hand, snuffing busily with 

 his funny little nose. We did not have the heart to 

 turn the tame, friendly little fellow over to the natural- 

 ists, and so we let him go. Birds aboimded. One kind 

 of cuckoo called like a whip-poor-will in the early morn- 

 I ing and late evening, and after nightfall. Among our 

 I friendly ^•isitors were the pretty, rather strikingly 

 I coloured little chats — Livingstone's wheatear — which 

 showed real curiosity in coming into camp. They were 



