With Flashlight and Rifle ^ 



rather, for it was a hot day for them to be out on the 

 velt. They were about i ,000 yards away. There was 

 unusually little wind, but that little was unfavourable, 

 so I made a wide dttour and had the satisfaction, after 

 about half an hour, of seeing the animals settle clown 



o 



together under a tree. Accompanied now by only two 

 of my bearers and two Masai, I succeeded in approaching 

 warily within 120 yards of them it happened, contrary 

 to the general rule, that they had no rhinoceros-birds on 

 them taking up my position finally behind a fairly thick 

 brier-bush "Towing out of a low ant-hill. 



O <^ 



I had taken several pictures successfully with my 

 telephoto-lens, when suddenly for some reason the 

 animals stood up quickly, both together as is their wont. 

 Almost simultaneously, the farther of the two, an old cow, 

 began moving the tront part of her body to and fro, and 

 then, followed by the bull with head high in the air, came 

 straight for me full gallop. I had instinctively felt what 

 would happen, and in a moment my rifle was in my hands 

 and my camera passed to my bearers. I fired six shots 

 and succeeded in bringing down both animals twice as 

 they rushed towards me great furrow r s in the sand of the 

 velt showed where they fell. 



My final shot I fired in the absolute certainty that my 

 last hour had come. It hit the cow on the nape of the 

 neck and at the same moment I sprang to the right, to 

 the other side of the brier-bush. My two men had taken 

 to flight by this time, but one of the Masai ran across 

 my path at this critical moment and sprang right into 

 the bush. He had evidently waited in the expectation 



238 



