Ahu- Gardani 117 



to the ground by stones. I was once watching 

 the approach of a buck, of course a very big one, 

 behind improvised cover of this sort, when a 

 gust of wind came and tore my bush from its 

 moorings, and the gazelle and I were left staring 

 at one another in mutual disgust ; and it was 

 not a very prolonged stare on the buck's part 

 either. 



In this sport, the unexpected is continually 

 happening, and it is not always the gazelle that 

 is favoured by fortune. More than once beasts 

 turned by Ibrahim have come galloping up to 

 me from a very long way off, without giving 

 me a moment's anxiety except, of course, that 

 connected with the shot itself ! Once, after going 

 down, I had not time to get my rifle out of its 

 cover before the herd came back on its tracks 

 close by. Eleven bucks, clattering over a surface 

 that was hard and smooth enough under the 

 intense light actually to reflect them, as from 

 polished marble. They were in single file with 

 regular intervals, each animal so exactly the 

 counterpart of the one in front, that they might 

 have been simulacra of a single gazelle; and I 

 should hardly have been surprised if, when I had 

 managed to pivot round and get off a shot at 

 the rearmost, they had vanished with the report 

 like mirage-conjured phantoms. 



