124 AFRICA SPEAKS 



himg around the camp all night, grunting and growhng 

 so that nobody was any too keen the next morning to 

 get back into the donga in order to get the truck out. 

 But it had to be done, and so here they were safe and 

 sound after a httle pleasure jaunt for supphesi 



After things had been stored away and letters read, 

 Mike and I set out to secure some meat for the boys 

 — the intention being to get a zebra as I wanted the 

 skin, but in Africa most anything can happen in one 

 afternoon. As we were crossing the broad plain in 

 front of our camp, I shot a fine topi bull with an ex- 

 ceptional head. This I had skinned out to return 

 home for my collection. The carcass we placed for 

 lion bait. Farther on I shot at a zebra, but missed, and 

 wliile we were trying to get another shot at him, almost 

 ran into a herd of eland. I promptly forgot all about 

 the tiger horse and went after this giant animal of the 

 antelope family. There was a noble looking bull in 

 the lot weighing around fifteen hundred pounds. His 

 head was nothing to brag about, but we needed fat 

 badly and there is nothing finer than eland meat. 

 Finally I took a running shot at between eighty and 

 one hundred yards, placing a 220-grain bullet into his 

 shoulder, which brought him down at once. We 

 took all the choice cuts for ourselves and the boys, 

 then dragged the remains to another likely spot for 

 lions. While the boys were cutting up the meat, 

 which took about two hours, hundreds of vultures and 

 marabou storks collected on the surrounding trees wait- 

 ing for us to leave the eland. When we dragged it 

 away they swooped down to disappointment. This 

 was one of the grandest days I ever spent in Africa. 

 The evening was perfect, ending in a marvelous sunset 



