THE PLAINS. 91 



place reeks with their fetid odour. Under an overhanging rock, with its mouth 

 blocked by thick undergrowth, is a cave. A few bits of gnawed bone and a kongoni's 

 horns lie at its entrance. This serves as a retreat for any wounded or hunted hyaena 

 but the greater number lie about the scrub and in other recesses in the valley. 



Suddenly we all gallop off furiously for a few hundred paces and then stop again. 

 The kongoni come pelting up from the pools and gallop off in their ungainly manner, 

 scared to death, while we stop to laugh at them. They do not know what they are 

 running from nor where they are running to ; so after going for about half a mile 

 they stop and look round to see what it was. There we leave them staring with their 

 long silly faces, never realising that they have been badly scored off. We make our 

 way over the rise and meet a solitary gnu standing on the next slope. This means 

 that the herd is probably in the next bottom, and as we do not wish to interfere with 

 their grazing rights we turn off and slowly wend our way to another dip. On the 

 way we pass a cock ostrich grazing alone. In the distance is a thing like a stick 

 standing up behind an ant-hill. This is the neck of the hen that is sitting. 



A little farther on is a long, winding, broken line of tree-tops ; these are thorn 

 trees marking the course of the river in the dip below. We make our way to 

 the banks of the stream, and there on the opposite bank we see a group of three 

 female waterbuck, and a little apart is a male. The sides of the valley shelve 

 steeply down, leaving a broad, flat expanse at the bottom of the valley. Just at 

 the bottom of these walls a family party of mountain reedbuck are grazing. 

 From among the thorn trees comes the soft cooing of the " dwellers at the 

 wells." 



Above this valley we start feeding, and graze away from the river, while the 

 sun climbs up and dispels the last of the mist from the river-bed. Every here 

 and there are flat, round, bare spaces; these were formerly termite hills, which now 

 have been licked flat by the hartebeest and other game for the sake of the 

 salt they contain. 



As the sun climbs up the heat haze begins to shimmer all over the plains, 

 distorting objects at a distance and making bushes appear like game walking. 

 As the heat of the sun increases, the game in all directions, we can see, are 

 beginning to lie down ; our friends the kongoni are all resting on the next rise, 

 a few of them standing up as sentinels. The solitary gnu, outlined against 

 the sky-line, still marks the near presence of the herd, which is probably 

 resting in some bottom not far distant. The old rhino wanders past ; he is 

 making for a tree that stands alone in a sea of grass and gives the only 

 shade obtainable within miles, excepting for that afforded by the small-leafed 



