330 .-/ SPORT/NG TRIP THROUGH ABYSSINIA chap. 



For the next four days I hunted through a country of 

 low, bush-covered hills with very little green grass, seeing 

 little but tora hartebeest and kudu cows. I shot one of 

 the latter for meat, but not once did I catch sight of a 

 bull. We were now working our way along the Gur- 

 marzer, a tributary of the Ghindoa, which flows to 

 Metemmeh, and in a deep hole in its rocky bed we saw a 

 huge crocodile, the first I had met since we crossed the 

 Blue Nile at Jarso. One morning, just at dawn, I saw 

 an almost white hyaena, and, judging by the tracks 

 which I found next day round the remains of the dead 

 kudu, there seemed to be numbers of these animals in 

 the district. Much of the ground over which we were 

 now travelling was covered with brown-coloured stones 

 like large cannon-balls, which when broken showed a 

 hollow encrusted with white crystals. All around, too, 

 lay great masses of milk-white quartz, red amber, and 

 pinkish - coloured crystals, also a dark stone set as it 

 were with turquoise, all of which had been washed by the 

 rain, and, lying on the short green grass with the sun 

 shining on them, looked like a collection of huge jewels. 

 The heat was great, not only in the day but also at night, 

 when swarms of mosquitoes kept up a continuous buzz ; 

 I found It so stifling in a tent, even with the walls and 

 ends open and nothing over me but a mosquito-net, that 

 I tried sleeping in the open, but, after getting wet 

 through twice in one night, gave it up as being too risky. 

 On two different days I stalked a solitary roan bull, but 

 could not get near him ; he seemed to bear a charmed 

 life, for after baflling us for hours on the last occasion, 

 he allowed the whole caravan to pass him at short range. 



