CH. xii] CAUTIOUS STALKING 337 



wary, and more apt to be found in country where there 

 were a good many bushes or small trees. \\^aterbuck 

 and kob sometimes associated together. 



The best singsing bull I got I owed to Tarl ton's 

 good eyesight and skill in tracking and stalking. The 

 herd of whicli it w^as master bull were shy, and took 

 the alarm just as we first saw them. Tarlton follow^ed 

 their trail for a couple of miles, and then stalked them 

 to an inch by the dexterous use of a couple of bushes 

 and an ant-hill, the ant-hill being reached after a two 

 hundred yards' crawl, first on all-fours and tlien flat on 

 the ground, which resulted in my getting a good off- 

 hand shot at a hundred and eighty yards. At this 

 time, about the middle of November, some of the cows 

 had new-born calves. One day I shot a hartebeest bull, 

 with horns tw^enty-four inches long, as it stood on the 

 top of an ant-heap. On going up to it we noticed 

 something behind a little bush, sixty yards off. We 

 were puzzled what it could be, but finally made out 

 a w^aterbuck cow, and a minute or two later away she 

 bounded to safety, followed by a wee calf. The porters 

 much appreciated the flesh of the waterbuck. We did 

 not. It is the poorest eating of African antelope ; and 

 among the big antelope only the eland is good as a 

 steady diet. 



One day we drove a big swamp, putting a hundred 

 porters across it in line, w^hile Kermit and I Avalked 

 a little ahead of them along the edges, he on one side 

 and I on the other. I shot a couple of bushbuck — an 

 ewe and a yoimg ram ; and after the drive was over he 

 shot a female leopard as she stood on the side of an 

 ant-hill. 



There were a nimiber of both reedbuck and bush- 

 buck in the swamp. The reedbuck were all ewes, 



22 



