Hunting at High Altitudes 



time elephant hunters, whom Selous mentions as 

 having stopped hunting in 1872 because the game 

 was then getting scarce. Both were excellent men, 

 speaking Dutch and Matibili fluently, kind to 

 both animals and natives, but not to be imposed 

 upon, as our men occasionally found to their cost, 

 when the double thong would wind around their 

 ribs for some flagrant piece of laziness. For the 

 next three days we traveled on through sandy 

 ridges, interspersed with little vleys open spaces 

 that are marshes in the rains or, more correctly, 

 I should say nights, as the wagon always left camp 

 at sundown, traveling until ten or eleven o'clock, 

 when the oxen were outspanned for a rest of three 

 hours, and then went forward until sunrise. We 

 usually slept until morning, then having a cup of 

 cocoa with a biscuit, and cantering in to breakfast, 

 or more generally taking a loop in search of game, 

 usually getting a reed buck or oribi. 



On the third morning we found the wagon 

 drawn up under an enormous fig tree near some 

 native kraals or villages, whose inhabitants were 

 soon flocking about camp, and from them we 

 learned that eland, roan antelope and hartebeest 

 were to be found in the vicinity. On the open plain 

 back of camp were to be seen many oribi, a little 

 antelope about twenty-five inches high with jet 



348 



