UGANDA, AND THE NYANZA LAKES 379 



and knocked senseless, a huge zigzag mark being left across 

 his body, and the links of his gold watch chain being fused; 

 it was many months before he completely recovered. 



Knowles arranged a situtunga hunt for us. The situ- 

 tunga is closely related to the bushbuck but is bigger, with 

 very long hoofs, and shaggy hair like a waterbuck. It is 

 exclusively a beast of the marshes, making its home in the 

 thick reedbeds, where the water is deep; and it is exceed- 

 ingly shy, so that very few white men have shot, or even 

 seen, it. Its long hoofs enable it to go over the most treach- 

 erous ground, and it swims well; in many of its haunts, in 

 the thick papyrus, the water is waist deep on a man. 

 Through the papyrus, and the reeds and marsh grass, it 

 makes well-beaten paths. Where it is in any danger of 

 molestation it is never seen abroad in the daytime, ven- 

 turing from the safe cover of the high reeds only at night; 

 but fifty miles inland, in the marsh grass on the edge of a 

 big papyrus swamp, Kermit caught a glimpse of half a 

 dozen feeding in the open, knee-deep in water, long after 

 sunrise. On the hunt in question a patch of marsh was 

 driven by a hundred natives, while the guns were strung 

 along the likely passes which led to another patch of marsh. 

 A fine situtunga buck came to Kermit's post, and he killed 

 it as it bolted away. It had stolen up so quietly through 

 the long marsh grass that he only saw it when it was di- 

 rectly on him. Its stomach contained not grass, but the 

 leaves and twig tips of a shrub which grows in and along- 

 side of the marshes. 



The day after this hunt our safari started on its march 

 north-westward to Lake Albert Nyanza. We had taken 

 with us from East Africa our gun-bearers, tent boys, and 



