DOWN THE NILE; THE GIANT ELAND 455 



and wallowing up to our hips through stretches of reeds, 

 water-lilies, green water, and foul black slime. Yet there 

 were ant-hills in the marsh. Once or twice we caught a 

 glimpse of the game in small patches of open ground cov- 

 ered with short grass; but almost always they kept to the 

 high grass and reeds. There were with the herd two very 

 old bucks, with a white saddle-shaped patch on the withers, 

 the white extending up the back of the neck to the head; 

 a mark of their being in full maturity, or past it, for on 

 some of the males, at least, this coloration only begins to 

 appear when they seem already to have attained their 

 growth of horn and body, their teeth showing them to be 

 five or six years old, while they are obviously in the prime 

 of vigor and breeding capacity. Unfortunately, in the 

 long grass it was impossible to single out these old bucks. 

 Marking as well as we could the general direction of the 

 herd we would steal toward it until we thought we were 

 in the neighborhood, and then cautiously climb an ant- 

 hill to look about. Nothing would be in sight. We would 

 scan the ground in every direction; still nothing. Sud- 

 denly a dozen heads would pop up, just above the grass, 

 two or three hundred yards off, and after a steady gaze 

 would disappear; and some minutes later would again 

 appear a quarter of a mile farther on. Usually they skulked 

 off at a trot or canter, necks stretched level with the back; 

 for they were great skulkers, and trusted chiefly to escap- 

 ing observation and stealing away from danger unper- 

 ceived. But occasionally they would break into a gallop, 

 making lofty bounds, clear above the tops of the grass; 

 and then they might go a long way before stopping. I 

 never saw them leap on the ant-hills to look about, as is 



