i62 A SPORTING TRIP THROUGH ABYSSINIA chap. 



of wood-cutters. After a rapid exchange of question 

 and answer, my men said that the caravan had gone 

 over there — pointing away into the blackness. A long 

 scramble across country ensued, we being often chal- 

 lenged both by man and dog ; but at last, after two and 

 a half hours' wandering about, we found camp, close 

 under a circular detached hill called Ekdo. When 

 questioned as to why they had gone there, the only 

 satisfaction we got was that my men thought they were 

 to go to the right, not to the left, so that they had 

 moved camp to a spot as far as possible from the 

 shooting-ground. On the 7th February, camp was 

 moved to the foot of Managasha, and pitched on the 

 edge of the great grassy plain of Turkogogo, which 

 stretched right away to the Hawash. Here I spent five 

 days hunting on the plain and in the forest. The plain 

 is covered with long coarse grass growing in tufts, and 

 divided by three little streams, which took their rise 

 in as many swampy places and had then cut deep 

 channels for themselves. Along these were thick belts 

 of jungle, but so much below the surface of the plain, 

 that at a little distance nothing showed to break the 

 level. In these both madoqjia (duiker) and baroufa 

 (reedbuck) found shelter. I tried beating them up, but 

 they broke so far ahead, and at such a pace, that I could 

 do no good, and had to give it up. By marking them 

 down and stalking, I got, before I left, four reedbuck and 

 one duiker, besides four more of the goraza (the last 

 two with one bullet — the first time, I believe, I have 

 done such a thing) and one other bushbuck, making a 

 total of fifteen for six days' shooting. 



