CH. xiii] A SITUTUNGA HUNT 373 



sitiitiinga is closely related to the bush})iick, but is 

 bigger, witli very long hoof's, and shaggy hair like a 

 waterbiK'k. It is exclusi\ely a beast of the marshes, 

 making its home in tlie thick reed-beds, where the water 

 is deep ; and it is exceedingly shy, so that very few 

 white men have shot, or even seen, it. Its long hoofs 

 enable it to go over the most treaclierous ground, and 

 it swims well ; in many of its haunts, in the thick 

 papyrus, the water is waist-deep on a man. Through 

 the papyrus, and the reeds and marsli grass, it makes 

 well-beaten paths. Where it is in any danger of 

 molestation it is never seen abroad in the daytime, 

 venturing from the safe cover of the high reeds only at 

 night ; but fifty miles inland, in the marsh grass on the 

 edge of a big papyrus swamp, Kermit caught a glimpse 

 of half a dozen feeding in the open, knee-deep in water, 

 long after sunrise. On the hunt in question a patch of 

 marsh was driven by a hundred natives, while the guns 

 were strung along the likely passes which led to another 

 patch of marsh. A fine situtunga })uck came to 

 Kermit's post, and he killed it as it bolted away. It 

 had stolen up so quietly through the long marsh grass 

 that he only saw it when it was directly on him. Its 

 stomach contained, not grass, but the leaves and twig 

 tips of a shrub which grows in and alongside of the 

 marshes. 



The day after this hunt our safari started on its 

 march north-westward to I^ake Albert Nyanza. We 

 had taken with us from P],ast Africa our gun-bearers 

 tent-boys, and the men whom the naturalists had trained 

 as skinners. The porters were men of Uganda ; the 

 askaris were from the constabulary, and widely diiferent 

 races were represented among them, but all had been 

 drilled into soldierly uniformity. The porters were 



