270 THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 



all anxious for meat. Villages everywhere, and the 

 country not much broken. However, after tramping 

 for some distance through thickly populated open land- 

 scape, we came to a narrow strip of "wild'' country 

 lying in the triangle where two streams meet. This 

 was a very small bit indeed, and was composed of 

 alternate small thickets and rolling high-grass knolls, 

 with a narrow strip of forest along the course of the 

 river. It was about a mile and a half long, by half a 

 mile at its greatest width. Immediately it became 

 evident that unless the cob was a particularly foolish 

 beast we would never get near any of them with the 

 procession we were dragging about. Therefore we 

 squatted the lot on a knoll and told them to stay put. 

 A hundred yards on we began to see cob in the very 

 tall grass. They were about the size and colour of im- 

 palla, and went bounding and popping about in elusive 

 and disconcerting fashion. We sneaked here and there 

 catching an occasional glimpse. The beasts were not 

 very wild, but it was almost impossible to get a plain 

 sight of them. Finally got a good offhand chance at 

 a reasonable distance — and missed! No excuse, ex- 

 cept that owing to continued heat and hard work I 

 had a streak of bad holding. Immediately set out in 

 pursuit and fired four more shots without result. This 

 was very sad. 



We went on, crossing the stream on the men's backs, 

 and working cautiously down through another strip of 



