452 THE GIANT ELAND [ch. xv 



steamer, with aboard it M. Solve, a Belgian sportsman, 

 a very successful hunter, whom we had already met at 

 Lado ; with him were his wife, his sister, and his 

 brother-in-law, both of the last being as ardent in the 

 chase, especially of dangerous game, as he was. His 

 party had killed two whalebills, one for the British 

 Museum and one for the Congo Museum. They were 

 a male and female who were near their nest, which con- 

 tained two downy young ; these were on M. Solvd's 

 boat, where we saw them. The nest was right on the 

 marsh water ; the birds had bent the long blades of 

 marsh grass into an interlacing foundation, and on this 

 had piled grass, which they had cut with their beaks. 

 These beaks can give a formidable bite, by the way, as 

 one of our sailors foimd to his cost when he rashly tried 

 to pick up a wounded bird. 



I was anxious to get a ewe of the saddle-back lechwe 

 for the Museimi, and landed in the late afternoon, on 

 seeing a herd. The swamp was so deep that it took an 

 hour's very hard and fatiguing wading, forcing ourselves 

 through the rank grass up to our shoulders in water, 

 before we got near them. The herd numbered about 

 forty individuals ; their broad trail showed where they 

 had come through the swamp, and even through a 

 papyrus bed ; but we found them grazing on merely 

 moist ground, where there were ant-hills in the long 

 grass. As I crept up they saw me, and greeted me 

 with a chorus of croaking grunts ; they are a very noisy 

 buck. I shot a ewe, and away rushed the herd through 

 the long grass, making a noise which could have been 

 heard nearly a mile off, and splashing and bounding 

 through the shallow lagoons. They halted, and again 

 begun grunting ; and then off they rushed once 

 more. The doe's stomach was filled with tender marsh 



