ELEPHANT HUNTING 231 



the papyrus. I missed a bull, and wounded another which I 

 did not get. This was all the more exasperating because 

 interspersed with the misses were some good shots: I killed 

 a fine waterbuck cow at a hundred yards, and a buck 

 tommy for the table at two hundred and fifty; and, after 

 missing a handsome black and white, red-billed and red- 

 legged jabiru, or saddle-billed stork, at a hundred and fifty 

 yards, as he stalked through the meadow after frogs, I cut 

 him down on the wing at a hundred and eighty, with the 

 little Springfield rifle. The waterbuck spent the daytime 

 outside, but near the edge of, the papyrus; I found them 

 grazing or resting, in the open, at all times between early 

 morning and late afternoon. Some of them spent most of 

 the day in the papyrus, keeping to the watery trails made 

 by the hippos and by themselves; but this was not the 

 general habit, unless they had been persecuted. When 

 frightened they often ran into the papyrus, smashing the 

 dead reeds and splashing the water in their rush. They are 

 noble-looking antelope, with long, shaggy hair, and their 

 chosen haunts beside the lake were very attractive. Clumps 

 of thorn-trees and flowering bushes grew at the edge of 

 the tall papyrus here and there, and often formed a matted 

 jungle, the trees laced together by creepers, many of them 

 brilliant in their bloom. The climbing morning-glories some- 

 times completely covered a tree with their pale-purple flow- 

 ers; and other blossoming vines spangled the green over 

 which their sprays were flung with masses of bright yellow. 

 Four days' march from Naivasha, where we again left 

 Mearns and Loring, took us to Neri. Our line of march 

 lay across the high plateaus and mountain chains of the 

 Aberdare range. The steep, twisting trail was slippery with 



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