3 1 4 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



until we were more than half way, and there I found 

 a circular pit which had been dug by this man and 

 his companions a short time ago. Into this we crept, 

 and with the guns handy, lay still. At all times watch- 

 ing for game by night is unpleasant, but doubly so 

 when your companion is an odoriferous African why 

 these people should all have this abominable bouquet, 

 aptly called d'Afrique, I do not know, but I think I 

 would sooner take a black draught than be in close 

 proximity to a nigger all night, but by getting to the 

 windward of him and making him sit as far away as pos- 

 sible, I managed to exist without being sick. Now and 

 then by half raising myself and looking over the pool 

 to the furthest point, I saw at times various indistinct 

 outlines of what I suppose were antelope, but it was 

 impossible to be certain what they were. We watched 

 the whole of that weary night, exposed to the heavy 

 dew just the way to catch the dreaded African fever- 

 but I had had my share and more, when up the Niger 

 and Congo, and was " salted" as it were so did not 

 fear it. At times I even dozed and just as day was 

 breaking, the shikarie touched me, and, looking in the 

 direction he pointed, I perceived several dark objects, 

 how many I could not say, coming right opposite to us 

 to drink. They boldly waded in and crowded together ; 

 two were so close that their flanks touched, one was 

 a buck and the other a doe of the hartebeest genus, 

 mule deer I call them, hideous ugly brutes, but they 

 were fair specimens, and a solid conical from the 

 Express passed through both, and they fell with a 

 splash. So unused were they to the report of a gun, 

 that the remainder of the herd, somewhat startled, 

 but not very much frightened, sprang forward in our 



