SKINNING THE ZEBRA 



days afterwards. Indeed, the men I had with me that 

 day were the most incompetent it has ever been my 

 misfortune to deal with. 



My skinner was in camp, looking after the trophies 

 I had lately obtained : neither my gun-bearer nor 

 guide, nor any of the other porters I had with me 

 had the haziest notion of how to undertake the work 

 of skinning so large an animal as a zebra. I sat 

 down at first under a tree to have a quiet smoke, 

 but soon got tired of watching their inefficient attempts, 

 and since I was afraid that they would damage the 

 skin, I pushed them aside and completed the job 

 myself. I skinned the whole of that zebra in three- 

 quarters of an hour, under a broiling sun, alone, with 

 my gun-bearer only helping by holding on when I 

 told him. At the time I was not a little proud of 

 this feat, especially as right at the beginning, my 

 hands being slippery with sweat, and my knife with 

 blood, I cut the inside of my thumb to the bone, 

 making a fearful gash which gave me some trouble, 

 until at lenoth I manao-ed to stanch the flow of blood. 



After this I went on for some time, through a 

 country which alternated between little open plains 

 and patches of acacia scrub, but, seeing nothing further, 

 returned to camp about midday. As I was having 

 lunch, a porter, who had gone down to the pool to 

 fetch water, came in and reported that he had seen 

 a herd of topi quite close, so I went off in search of 

 them, and not long after spotted them resting under 

 a clump of trees. The lie of the ground and the 

 direction from which the wind was blowing were all 

 in my favour, and I got to within a very short 

 distance of where the foremost stood. This good 

 stalk was spoiled by a lamentable shot. Tiiey immedi- 



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