420 ON SAFARI IN SOTIK WILDERNESS AND LAKE NAIVASHA 



brute. The bullet caught the animal in mid career, striking in a mortal 

 spot, and down came the ferocious beast in a heap almost at the 

 hunter's feet. Death had met the bounding animal full face in its 

 charge, but it had been a narrow call for the hunter, who, as he rested 

 for a moment on his ritle, felt that he had been nearer death than ever 

 in his life before. But with this feeling was one of gratified pride 

 that he owed his safety to himself alone and had in that moment of 

 peril taken rank with the great hunters of the world. The bullet had 

 struck the animal full in the middle of the chest and torn through 

 heart and body in a death-dealing course. 



We have given only a few of the adventures of the hunters in 

 the Sotik country. While the one just described was much the most 

 perilous, their trip was attended with daily perils. To Mr. Roosevelt's 

 bag of game he added a splendidly mancd lion, a lioness, four rhinoc- 

 eroses and three buffaloes, while Kermit brought down a big bull 

 eland, a lioness and two rhinos. To these must be added a great 

 variety of other game which fell to the lot of both. 



Of these the eland must be classed among the big game, though it 

 does not rank with the perilous ones. Trusting to its legs for safety 

 and very alert in its movements, it is hard to approach within sure rifle 

 range, and the hunter is often obliged to try his luck at four hundred 

 yards or even greater distances. Roosevelt brought down a big bull 

 on the Athi plains when a quarter mile away, but a mortal shot at this 

 range is a very uncertain probleim. He tells us that the eland is as 

 heavy as a fat ox and that a herd of them looks like a troop of hand- 

 some cattle, yet their agility is so great that he had seen a cow leap 

 clear over the backs of others that were in its way. 



While the eland trusts to flight from the hunter for safety, the 

 bufifalo is far more likely to make its flight towards the hunter, on 

 deadly work intent. It is, in fact, one of the most savage and danger- 

 ous of African animals, probably surpassing the lion in the number 

 of hunters slain by it. The three buffaloes brought down by Mr. 

 Roosevelt in this excursion were not got without greater risk than 

 that run in shooting the four rhinos which he scored to his credit. 



In one of his hunts for buffalo in the Nairobi district, a herd of 

 nearly a hundred of these savage brutes was put up. These had their 



