EVENING BY THE RIVER 55 



Perhaps even more fascinating than the watch 

 by a jungle pool at night, is the walk and watch 

 by an African river at sunrise and sunset. Then 

 and there you may study the ways of the wild 

 animals, and there, if possible, the rifle should 

 give way to the camera, and a desire for trophies 

 to the delight of observation. A good sitatunga 

 head was needed for my collection, as none had 

 yet been seen elsewhere in Africa worthy of it ; 

 but I hunted the river bank that evening as much 

 for the joy of watching wild things and their 

 ways as for any hope of a head. And the evening- 

 brought its reward ; for one after another of the 

 commoner antelopes came down from the forest 

 to drink and sometimes to graze. 



A reed buck, a graceful fawn-coloured antelope 

 a little larger than a fallow deer, with short, 

 forward-curving horns, was the first to leave the 

 forest, followed by two does. Soon after, a little 

 duiker, smaller and more graceful than a roe deer, 

 picked his way daintily over the stubble to the 

 w r ater. Not far from me a family of wart-hog, 

 weird-looking pigs with big warts and long tushes 

 on their disproportionately large heads, and little 

 tufts on their quaint upstanding tails, came to the 

 river the sow fussy, the boar truculent, and 

 both comically anxious for their young, who were 

 wilful and inclined to wander. Far down the 

 river a roan, with the build and height of a hunting 

 cob, was taking his evening drink. Near by, an 

 otter was busy fishing among the reeds. 



Dusk was approaching fast, and the hour of the 

 sitatunga, that almost amphibious antelope which 



