436 THE GIANT ELAND [ch. xv 



Colonel Owen, Slatin Pasha, and Butler Bey — treated 

 us with a courtesy of which I cannot too strongly 

 express my appreciation. In the boat we were to have 

 met an old friend and fellow-countryman, Leigh Hunt. 

 To our great regret, he could not meet us, but he insisted 

 on treating us as his guests, and on our way down the 

 Nile we felt as if we were on the most comfortable 

 kind of yachting trip ; and everything was done for us 

 by Captain Middleton, the Scottish engineer in charge. 



Nor was our debt only to British officials and to 

 American friends. At Gondokoro I was met by 

 M. Banquet, the Belgian Commandant of the Lado 

 district, and both he and M. Massart, the Chef de 

 Poste at Redjaf, were kindness itself, and aided us in 

 every way. 



From Gondokoro Kermit and I crossed to Redjaf, for 

 an eight days' trip after the largest and handsomest, and 

 one of the least known, of African antelopes — the 

 giant eland. We went alone, because all the other 

 white men of the party were down with dysentery or 

 fever. We had with us sixty Uganda porters, and a 

 dozen mules sent us by the Sirdar, together with a 

 couple of our little riding mules, which we used now 

 and then for a couple of hours on safari, or in getting 

 to the actual hunting-ground. As always when only 

 one or two of us went, or when the safari was sliort, we 

 travelled light, with no dining-tent, and nothing unneces- 

 sary in the way of baggage ; the only impedimenta 

 wliich we could not reduce were those connected with 

 the preservation of the skins of the big animals, which, 

 of course, were throughout our whole trip what neces- 

 sitated the use of the bulk of the porters and other 

 means of transportation employed. 



From the neat little station of Redjaf, lying at the 



