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AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



caution. The eland, on the other hand, in spite of its 

 huge size, is singularly mild and inoffensive, an old bull 

 being as inferior to an oryx in the will and power to fight 

 as it is in speed and endurance. "Antelope," as I have 

 said, is a very loose term, meaning simply any hollow-horned 



ruminant that isn't an 

 ox, a sheep, or a goat. 

 The eland is one of the 

 group of tragelaphs, 

 which are as different 

 from the true antelopes, 

 such as the gazelles, as 

 they are from the oxen. 

 One of its kinsfolk is 

 the handsome little 

 bushbuck, about as big 

 as a white-tail deer; a 

 buck of which Kermit 

 had killed two speci- 

 mens. The bushbuck 

 is a wicked fighter, no 

 other buck of its size be- 

 ing as dangerous; which 

 makes the helplessness 

 and timidity of its huge 

 relative all the more 

 striking. 



I had kept four Ki- 

 kuyus with me to ac- 

 company me on my 



hunts and carry in the skins and meat. They were with me 

 on this occasion ; and it was amusing to see how my 

 four regular attendants, Bakhari and Gouvimali the gun- 

 bearers, Simba the sais, and Kiboko the skinner, looked 

 down on their wild and totally uncivilized brethren. They 

 would not associate with the "shenzis," as they called 

 them; that is, savages or bush people. But the "shenzis" 



An oryx bull 

 From a photograph by Theodore Roosevelt 



