A FINE LEOPARD 



this district in the most extraordinary numbers, but 

 owing to the thickness of the undergrowth they 

 are hard to see. While creeping very slowly and 

 cautiously through the bush in search of them I 

 suddenly came across a fine leopard ; as he rose, I 

 fired two shots at him with my shot-gun, very 

 unwisely, but I had no other weapon ; for a second 

 I thought he would charge, but he changed his mind, 

 and with a low snarl turned and vanished into the 

 bush before I could reload. Although I followed 

 the blood spoor some distance, I never found him, 

 much to my disappointment, and though later I often 

 came across fresh leopard spoor I never saw another. 

 They are, as anyone who has hunted them knows, 

 very hard to bag, and in Jubaland this is especially 

 the case, owing to the dense undergrowth. They 

 appear to feed mainly on dik-dik and gerenuk, which 

 are very numerous everywhere. In rare cases, when 

 pressed by hunger, they may attack larger game, and 

 in one instance I found a young giraffe killed by 

 leopards after a desperate struggle. 



All through the march from this camp down to 

 the sea, near Gondal, the half-sneeze, half-whistle of 

 a frightened dik-dik was constantly heard, and I saw 

 quite a number in spite of the thickness of the bush. 

 Down by the seashore also I saw some cranes and 

 several pelicans, but they were out of range and very 

 wild, so that I was unable to obtain a specimen. 



Gondal is a small flat promontory, T-shaped, that 

 forms the southern extremity of Kismayu Bay. 

 Within a quarter of a mile inland from its base are 

 some very remarkable ruins. They consist of the 

 remains of two buildings and a shrine; the accompany- 

 ing photograph shows what is left of the latter. They 



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