152 THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 



great depth. No swimmer could cross it. It is sev- 

 eral times the size of the Tana, for example. At this 

 moment it seemed to be in flood, yet the swollen 

 current may be a normal condition for all I know. 

 Certainly the rainy season is long past. Farther up- 

 stream it widened to a quarter of a mile, but even there 

 proved unfordable. This is the river from whose 

 lower reaches near the lake come persistent reports of 

 the amphibious beast "big as a crocodile, but with 

 long hair." There may be something in it: the report 

 comes from a great many independent sources. One 

 white man of otherwise mild imagination claims to 

 have wounded one. We did not see any ! 



We rather gave up the notion of slipping across to 

 where we had heard some lions, and turned north. 

 Here we saw topi, Nakuru hartebeeste, zebra, reedbuck, 

 impalla, and oribi, and a number of sing-sing. Among 

 them was the noblest buck I had ever seen. Had 

 with us only the .405, as this was a scout not a hunt; 

 but I took that. He proved very shy, and — as some- 

 times happens — there was too much game ; it served to 

 warn him. At last, seeing that I would get no nearer, 

 and that he was next due to skip out entirely, I made a 

 very careful estimate of the distance as 400 yards, set 

 the sight up four notches, sat down, and let drive. By 

 the sheerest fluke in the world the bullet took him 

 through the heart — 411 yards. His horns went thirty- 

 four and a half inches with a spread of twenty-eight 



