WART-HOGS AND HARTEBEESTE 173 



and herons and little bitterns, and cormorants with 

 their wings spread out to dry in the sun, and darters 

 sitting disdainfully with their chins in the air. 



Beyond this swampy barrier is a rolling plain of 

 short dry grass, where antelopes are almost as 

 numerous, though there is not so great a variety of 

 species, as on the Athi Plains of British East Africa. 

 One of the commonest is the topi, or Senegal 

 hartebeeste,* an ungainly red beast with sloping 

 shoulders and a long, serious face. I was stalking 

 one of these animals one day when I disturbed 

 three wart-hogs, the first I had ever seen. The 

 wart-hog is the most grotesque-looking beast that 

 lives, with a facial expression like those of the bull- 

 dog and the hippopotamus combined, and an absurd 

 little tail with a short tuft of hair at the end, which 

 stands straight upright like a little flag when the 

 animal runs. The sight of them as they trotted 

 away caused me such merrimentt hat the topi owed 

 his life to those three wart-hogs. 



Another antelope, which is very common on the 

 Albert Edward Plains is the reedbuck, which was 

 often a welcome addition to our larder. It is not 

 difficult to approach a reedbuck on open ground, but 

 where the grass is long the animal progresses by a 

 series of prodigious bounds, and trying to hit one is 

 about as easy as potting at a tennis-ball with a pea- 

 shooter. 



The few inhabitants of the district seem to be 

 * Damaliscus corrigum. 



