26 THE EASTERN PROVINCE 



The male of this particular variety found on the Gwas' Ngishu Plateau 

 develops an extra pair of liorn-bosses on the base of the skull. In colour 

 the adult males and females become so dark on the upper part of the 

 body that, seen from a distance, they seem to be black or purple with 

 white bellies, and are therefore most striking objects, especially when they 

 stand, as they often do, on the tops of low ant-hills, from which they survey 

 with their keen sight all the surrounding country. The purplish look is 

 given by the reddish-brown hairs which mingle with the black on the large 

 spots. When a girati'e is thus poised on a mound like a sentinel, he is 

 absolutely rigid, and moves his head so little that the appearance of 

 immobility, coupled with the extraordinary shape — the short body and the 

 enormously long tapering neck — give the traveller the fixed impression that 

 he is lookino- at an unbranched tree-trunk which has been blasted bv 

 lightning or a forest fire. 



But giraffes are not the only large game on these glorious downs. 

 Elephants may be seen in great herds close by, but they affect rather 

 more the scattered forest than the open plains. Where you see the 

 giraffes you see also numerous rhinos in couples, male and female, or a 

 female alone with her snub-nosed calf. The rhino looks a purple-black or 

 a whitish grey as he moves through the long grass, according as the light 

 strikes him. It is a glorious sight, say an hour after the sun has risen 

 and the shadows are beginning to shorten, to traverse this grass country 

 and see this zoological gardens turned loose. Herds of zebras and Jackson's 

 hartebeest mingle together, and in face of the sunlight become a changing 

 procession of silver and gold, the sleek coats of the zebras in the level 

 sunlight mingling their black stripes and snowy intervals into a uniform 

 sih^er-grey, whilst the coats of the hartebeests are simiply red-gold. Dotted 

 about on the outskirts of this throng are jet-black cock ostriches with white 

 wings, a white bob-tail, and long pink necks. I\ed and silver jackals slink 

 and snap ; grotesque wart-hogs of a dirty grey, with whitish bristles and 

 erect tails terminating in a drooping tassel, scurry before the traveller 

 till they can bolt into some burrow of the ant bear. Males of the noble 

 waterbuck, strangely like the English red deer, appear at a distance, 

 browsing with their hornless, doe-like females, or gazing at the approaching 

 traveller with head erect and the maned neck and splendid carriage of 

 Landseer's stags. Grey-yellow reedbuck bend their lissom bodies into 

 such a bounding gallop that the spine seems to become concave as the 

 animal's rear is flung high into the air. The dainty Damaliscvs. or 

 sable antelope, with a coat of red, mauve, black, and yellow satin bordered 

 with cream colour, stands at gaze, his ccat like watered silk as the 

 sunlight follows the wavy growth of the glistening hair. Once black 

 buffalo would have borne a part in this assemblage, but now, alas ! they 



