Big Game Shooting 



jingling their anklets rhythmically and regularly 

 like one man as they move to our first camp, 

 where the Maragua River joins the Tana, moving 

 east now, which we shall go on doing for a week 

 or so. A photograph or two of the ford over 

 this river, accompanied by a picnic there, is all 

 that is worth staying for, and the next day will 

 find one in a beautiful game country : the Tana 

 on the one hand, with grassy slopes studded with 

 the ubiquitous thorn bush on the right, up to the 

 hills above, dotted with herds of impalah and 

 water-buck, down once more to the river, which 

 is stiff with crocodiles of all sizes, along the valley 

 we go, with every now and again a rhino showing 

 its ugly self (and there are plenty of them there), 

 to camp after camp. It is worth while going 

 easy down here, always supposing that one is not 

 pushed for time. 



It is warm and nice, there is game in plenty 

 and to spare, so one soon learns here to let 

 animals off, to discriminate between the signs 

 and lengths of various bucks' horns. Whilst the 

 caravan moves slowly onwards, some ten miles at 

 a march or so at most, one scours the country on 

 the right bank of the river down which one is 

 shooting twice a day. That is the proper way to 

 do things, as different animals feed over the same 



o ' 



ground in the evening compared to the morning. 

 At length one reaches the main up-country 

 affluent of the Tana, the Thika Thika River, 



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