140 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



vultures on the wing with a rifle. I do not believe that 

 three better men than Mearns, Heller, and Loring, for such 

 an expedition as ours, could be found anywhere. 



It was three days later before we were again successful 

 with buffalo. On this occasion we started about eight in 

 the morning, having come to the conclusion that the herd 

 was more apt to leave the papyrus late than early. Our 

 special object was to get a cow. We intended to take ad- 

 vantage of a small half-dried watercourse, an affluent of 

 the Kamiti, which began a mile beyond where we had 

 killed our bulls, and for three or four miles ran in a course 

 generally parallel to the swamp, and at a distance which 

 varied, but averaged perhaps a quarter of a mile. When we 

 reached the beginning of this watercourse, we left our 

 horses and walked along it. Like all such watercourses, it 

 wound in curves. The banks were four or five feet high, 

 the bottom was sometimes dry and sometimes contained 

 reedy pools, while at intervals there were clumps of papy- 

 rus. Heatley went ahead, and just as we had about con- 

 cluded that the buffalo would not come out, he came back 

 to tell us that he had caught a glimpse of several, and be- 

 lieved that the main herd was with them. Cuninghame, a 

 veteran hunter and first-class shot, than whom there could be 

 no better man to have with one when after dangerous game, 

 took charge of our further movements. We crept up the 

 watercourse until about opposite the buffalo, which were 

 now lying down. Cuninghame peered cautiously at them, 

 saw there were two or three, and then led us on all fours 

 toward them. There were patches where the grass was short, 

 and other places where it was three feet high, and after a good 

 deal of cautious crawling we had covered half the distance 



