362 LARGE GAME. CHAP. vm. 



we came across the fresh track of a white rhinoceros. This 

 we followed ; and while we were engaged in doing so, my 

 companion suddenly said, " Look, are those not buffalo ?" 

 and on the opposite ridge, about half a mile off, I saw a 

 black mass coming slowly down. Of course we at once 

 left the rhinoceros, and set off towards them, though I 

 noticed on the way that the hunter kept looking very 

 earnestly. At last he sat down, laughed, and taking his 

 snuff-box out of the slit in his ear, prepared to indulge 

 in that luxury. "What's the matter?" I wonderingly 

 asked. "They're not buffalo, they're gnu," was the 

 answer. I had not killed much game in those days, and 

 thought a gnu very nearly as good as a buffalo, at any 

 rate sufficiently so to make me say, " Well, I '11 go and 

 stalk them while you are taking snuff." 



The old hunter looked amused, but nodded assent, 

 and off I started. There were a number of small thorn 

 bushes between me and the spot where they were feeding, 

 and running stooping forward, though not taking any 

 particular pains to conceal myself, I always managed to 

 keep one of them between us. It was twilight, and the 

 herd was feeding, or I should most certainly have been 

 noticed, but as it was I reached a little bush, not two feet 

 high, some two hundred yards from them, and as they 

 were grazing in my direction, in a few minutes the whole 

 herd was within fifty yards of me, many of them within 

 ten. It was a long time before I fired. Even a very- 

 young and keen sportsman cannot fail to be interested in 

 watching a large herd of wild game peacefully feeding, 

 unsuspicious of danger, within a few yards of him, so 

 interested sometimes as to forget that he has a gun. 



