112 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



think that a deer or prong-buck, hit in the same fashion, 

 would have gone off and would have given a long chase 

 before being overtaken. Judging from what others have 

 said, I have no doubt that African game is very tough 

 and succumbs less easily to wounds than is the case with 

 animals of the northern temperate zone; but in my own 

 experience, I several times saw African antelopes succumb to 

 wounds quicker than the average northern animal would 

 have succumbed to a similar wound. One was this impalla. 

 Another was the cow eland I first shot; her hind leg was 

 broken high up, and the wound, though crippling, was 

 not such as would have prevented a moose or wapiti from 

 hobbling away on three legs; yet in spite of hard strug- 

 gles the eland was wholly unable to regain her feet. 



The impalla thus shot, by the way, although in fine 

 condition and the coat of glossy beauty, was infested by 

 ticks; around the horns the horrid little insects were clus- 

 tered in thick masses for a space of a diameter of some 

 inches. It was to me marvellous that they had not set 

 up inflammation or caused great sores, for they were so 

 thick that at a distance of a few feet they gave the appear- 

 ance of there being some big gland or bare place at the root 

 of each horn. 



The other impalla buck also showed an unexpected 

 softness, succumbing to a wound which I do not believe 

 would have given me either a white-tailed or a black-tailed 

 deer. I had been vainly endeavoring to get a waterbuck 

 bull, and as the day was growing hot I was riding home- 

 ward, scanning the edge of the plain where it merged into 

 the trees that extended out from the steep bank that hemmed 

 in one side of the river-bottom. From time to time we 



