188 HUNTING IN THE SOTIK [ch. viii 



and they rode out, and Loring shot her. Slie charged 

 him savagely ; he shot her straight through the heart, 

 and she fell literally at his feet. The three naturalists 

 were all good shots, and were used to all the mishaps 

 and adventures of life in the wilderness. Not only 

 would it have been indeed difficult to find three better 

 men for their particular work — Heller's work, for 

 instance, with Cuninghame's help, gave the chief point 

 to our big-game shooting — but it would have been 

 equally difficult to find three better men for any 

 emergency. I could not speak too highly of them ; 

 nor, indeed, of our two other companions, C'uninghame 

 and Tarlton, wliose mastery of their own field was as 

 noteworthy as the pre-eminence of the naturalists in 

 their field. 



The following morning the headmen asked that we 

 get the porters some meat. Tarlton, Kermit, and I 

 sallied forth accordingly. The country was very dry, 

 and the game in our immediate neighbourhood was not 

 plentiful and was rather shy. I killed three kongoni 

 out of a herd, at from two hundred and fifty to three 

 hundred and ninety paces ; one topi at three hundred 

 and thirty paces, and a Roberts' gazelle at two hundred 

 and seventy. JNIearnvhile, the other two had killed a 

 kongoni and five of the big gazelles, wherever possible 

 the game being hal-lalled in orthodox fashion by the 

 Mohammedans among our attendants, so as to fit it for 

 use by their co-religionists among the porters. Then 

 we saw some giraffes, and galloped them to see if there 

 was a really big bull in the lot. They had a long start, 

 but Kermit and Tarlton overtook them after a couple 

 of miles, while I pounded along in the rear. However, 

 there was no really good bull. Kermit and Tarlton 

 pulled up, and we jogged along toward the koppies 



