302 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



beds of green rushes and a fringe of trees and thorn thickets. 

 This was evidently a favorite drinking-place. Many trails 

 converged toward it, and for a long distance round the 

 ground was worn completely bare by the hoofs of the count- 

 less herds of thirsty game that had travelled thither from 

 time immemorial. Sleek, handsome, long-horned oryx, with 

 switching tails, were loitering in the vicinity, and at the 

 water hole itself we surprised a band of gazelles not fifty 

 yards off; they fled panic-struck in every direction. Men 

 and horses drank their fill; and we returned to the sunny 

 plains and the endless reaches of withered, rustling grass. 

 At last, an hour or two before sunset, when the heat had 

 begun a little to abate, we spied half a dozen giraffes scattered 

 a mile and a half ahead of us, feeding on the tops of the 

 few widely separated thorn-trees. Cuninghame and I 

 started toward them on foot, but they saw us when we 

 were a mile away, and after gazing a short while, turned 

 and went off at their usual rocking-horse canter, twisting 

 and screwing their tails. We mounted and rode after 

 them. I was on my zebra-shaped brown horse, which was 

 hardy and with a fair turn of speed, and which by this time 

 I had trained to be a good hunting horse. On the right 

 were two giraffe which eventually turned out to be a big 

 cow followed by a nearly full-grown young one; but Cun- 

 inghame, scanning them through his glasses, and misled by 

 the dark coloration, pronounced them a bull and cow; 

 and after the big one I went. By good luck we were on 

 one of the rare pieces of the country which was fitted for 

 galloping. I rode at an angle to the giraffe's line of flight, 

 thus gaining considerably; and when it finally turned and 

 went straight away I followed it at a fast run, and before it 



