ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 97 



at a man who incautiously comes within reach, they are in 

 no way dangerous. 



The following day I again rode out with Captain Slat- 

 ter. During the morning we saw nothing except the ordi- 

 nary game, and we lunched on a hill-top, ten miles distant 

 from camp, under a huge fig-tree with spreading branches 

 and thick, deep green foliage. Throughout the time we 

 were taking lunch a herd of zebras watched us from near 

 by, standing motionless with their ears pricked forward, 

 their beautifully striped bodies showing finely in the sun- 

 light. We scanned the country round about with our 

 glasses, and made out first a herd of elands, a mile in 

 our rear, and then three giraffes a mile and a half in our 

 front. I wanted a bull eland, but I wanted a giraffe still 

 more, and we mounted our horses and rode toward where 

 the three tall beasts stood, on an open hillside with trees 

 thinly scattered over it. Half a mile from them we left the 

 horses in a thick belt of timber beside a dry watercourse, 

 and went forward on foot. 



There was no use in trying a stalk, for that would 

 merely have aroused the giraffe's suspicion. But we knew 

 they were accustomed to the passing and repassing of 

 Wakamba men and women, whom they did not fear if they 

 kept at a reasonable distance, so we walked in single file 

 diagonally in their direction; that is, toward a tree which 

 I judged to be about three hundred yards from them. I 

 was carrying the Winchester loaded with full metal-patched 

 bullets. I wished to get for the museum both a bull and a 

 cow. One of the three giraffes was much larger than the 

 other two, and as he was evidently a bull I thought the two 

 others were cows. 



