86 SHEEP 



there for ten days at the least, whilst his relatives make ' ju-ju ' or 

 sacrifices to the spirit of the deceased animal, whereby it is propitiated 

 and endows its slayer with its own reputed qualities of fierceness and 

 cunning. Should the hunter or his relatives be remiss in these 

 devotions, the spirit of the bush-cow enters into the hunter to his own 

 destruction, and he goes raging mad and dies. 



" Hunting the ' bush-cow ' is attended with difficulty, as it is shy and 

 retiring, and when feeding in the open travels at a great pace. Perhaps 

 the best method is to visit a water-side, not of the big rivers, but of one 

 of the smaller streams, so soon as daylight permits of tracks being 

 discerned, morning after morning, until fresh tracks of one that has been 

 recently to water are seen. The tracks must be followed rapidly, and 

 yet with caution, in the hope of coming up with the beast before it 

 reaches the denser bush, where it is nearly impossible for the most 

 experienced tracker to keep steadily on the spoor. Great caution is 

 required, for the bush-cow is quick of hearing and has acute scenting 

 powers. These buffalo are very tenacious of life, and will travel long 

 distances when badly wounded. The skin, on an average f inch in 

 thickness, presents no great obstacle to a bullet, and I have put a hollow- 

 pointed Paradox bullet into a bull broadside-on, which only stopped just 

 below the skin on the farther side ; but shot after shot may be put in 

 before the beast comes to its knees, and, when down, it is a long time 

 in dying, even when hit in a vital region." 



THE ARUI OR UDAD 



(Ovis \Ammotragus\ lervid] 

 Udad, TUNISIA ; Ami, S. ALGERIA ; Wadan, TRIPOLI AND FEZZAN 



As the oxen form one subfamily (Bovince] of the hollow-horned 

 ruminants, so the sheep and goats, both of which are very poorly 

 represented in Africa, constitute a second {Caprina). From the 

 Bovina the members of this latter group are distinguished by the 

 hairy muzzle, the form of the horns, which are generally small, or even 

 wanting in the females, the higher carriage of the head, the presence 

 of only two teats in the female, and, above all, by the structure of the 

 cheek-teeth. In the upper jaw these teeth, although tall, have much 

 narrower crowns than those of the oxen, and the number of isolated 

 areas of ivory exposed on their grinding-surfaces is one less in each 

 tooth. The horns of goats and sheep are always more or less 



