3 1 o Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



game, as there were no inhabitants, and the country 

 looked favourable for antelope. But the natives with 

 me declared it was impossible to go off the beaten 

 track. I had just finished dinner, and was taking it 

 easy, when a string of some five or six men approached, 

 armed with bows and arrows and laden with meat. 

 I at once got hold of my interpreter, and after giving 

 the strangers a tot of grog all round, questioned the 

 leader. At first he was very reticent, but another 

 glass of gin and a view of a few gorgeous handker- 

 chiefs loosened his tongue, and Andrew, my inter- 

 preter a very good lad, who had been fairly educated 

 and brought up by the missionaries informed me 

 that the game they had with them had been killed 

 that day near a pool not five miles off. I asked 

 their head man to attach himself to me for a few 

 days, but he said he must go into Mombasa to sell 

 the meat at once, or it would be tainted and be 

 unsaleable. I told him to send it in with the others, 

 who could return and meet us at any place he chose 

 to appoint, and, after a long confab, and a present of 

 three handkerchiefs to himself and a couple to each 

 of the others, and a promise of more hereafter, he 

 agreed to take me across country to the best sporting 

 localities, but that if we went with him after game 

 it would take us five days to get to Shimba, instead 

 of twelve hours by the ordinary route, for though the 

 distance in a bee line was much the shorter, the 

 country between us and the hills was very bad, and 

 we should have to ascend them by a long circuitous 

 route, and if I wanted to shoot game we must halt 

 near some of the pools and lie in wait for the deer 

 when they came to drink. I was in no hurry to get 



