88 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



and not the less so when with characteristic suddenness he 

 bounces round with a grunt and scuttles madly off to safety. 

 Wart-hogs are beasts of the bare plain or open forest, and 

 though they will often lie up in patches of brush they do 

 not care for thick timber. 



After shooting the wart-hog we marched on to our 

 camp at Bondoni. The gun-bearers were Mohammedans, 

 and the dead pig was of no service to them; and at their 

 request I walked out while camp was being pitched and 

 shot them a buck; this I had to do now and then, but I 

 always shot males, so as not to damage the species. 



Next day we marched to the foot of Kilimakiu Moun- 

 tain, near Captain Slatter's ostrich-farm. Our route lay 

 across bare plains thickly covered with withered short grass. 

 All around us as we marched were the game herds, zebras 

 and hartebeests, gazelles of the two kinds, and now and 

 then wildebeests. Hither and thither over the plain, cross- 

 ing and recrossing, ran the dusty game trails, each with 

 its myriad hoof-marks; the round hoof-prints of the zebra, 

 the heart-shaped marks that showed where the hartebeest 

 herd had trod, and the delicate etching that betrayed where 

 the smaller antelope had passed. Occasionally we crossed 

 the trails of the natives, worn deep in the hard soil by the 

 countless thousands of bare or sandalled feet that had 

 trodden them. Africa is a country of trails. Across the 

 high veldt, in every direction, run the tangled trails of the 

 multitudes of game that have lived thereon from time im- 

 memorial. The great beasts of the marsh and the forest 

 made therein broad and muddy trails which often offer 

 the only pathway by which a man can enter the sombre 

 depths. In wet ground and dry alike are also found the 



