XXII SMALL GAME SHOOTING 239 



hours. I succeeded in keeping my men fairly well 

 supplied with fresh meat, and seldom returned without 

 one or two bohor, oribi, or duiker for the larder. The 

 first day I went out, Basha Kassa started to follow me ; 

 I stopped and asked if he intended to interfere with my 

 shooting, to which he replied that his orders were not to 

 prevent me, so long as I did not move my camp from 

 the road. I found the villagers at first most anxious to 

 show me where game was to be found, but soon a 

 change was apparent in their demeanour. This puzzled 

 me, as I had always rewarded them either with money 

 or meat, till one day, as a man was guiding me to some 

 bohor ground, I saw a horseman suddenly leave a caval- 

 cade which was passing along a road close by and gallop 

 up to us. Drawing my guide apart, the stranger spoke 

 to him, whereupon the man turned and left us. The 

 object of this was clear, and I learned that orders had 

 been sent to every hamlet within three hours' journey, 

 that I was to be shown no game. After this the only 

 people from whom I got any help were an old Mohammedan, 

 who lived close to a big grassy plain which stretched to 

 the bank of the Abbai, east of our camp, and the priests 

 of a church situated north-east of us. They were most 

 anxious that I should shoot some wart-hog which de- 

 stroyed their crops, but these only fed at night, and 

 although I spent several days on the ground, both early 

 and late, I never caught sight of them. It was here that 

 I saw an ingenious trap for catching duiker, made of a 

 heavily weighted wattle hurdle, the support of which was 

 released by the victim pulling at threaded beans attached 

 to a triesfer. 



