510 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



and M. Massart, the Chef de Poste at Redjaf, were kind- 

 ness itself, and aided us in every way. 



From Gondokoro Kermit and I crossed to Redjaf, for 

 an eight days' trip after the largest and handsomest, and one 

 of the least known, of African antelopes, the giant eland. 

 We went alone, because all the other white men of the 

 party were down with dysentery or fever. We had with us 

 sixty Uganda porters and a dozen mules sent us by the 

 Sirdar, together with a couple of our little riding mules, 

 which we used now and then for a couple of hours on safari, 

 or in getting to the actual hunting ground. As always 

 when only one or two of us went, or when the safari was 

 short, we travelled light, with no dining-tent and nothing 

 unnecessary in the way of baggage; the only impedimenta 

 which we could not minimize were those connected with 

 the preservation of the skins of the big animals, which, of 

 course, were throughout our whole trip what necessitated 

 the use of the bulk of the porters and other means of 

 transportation employed. 



From the neat little station of Redjaf, lying at the foot 

 of the bold pyramidal hill of the same name, we marched 

 two days west, stopping short of the river Koda, where 

 we knew the game drank. Now and then we came on 

 flower-bearing bushes, of marvellously sweet scent, like 

 gardenias. It was the height of the dry season; the coun- 

 try was covered with coarse grass and a scrub growth of 

 nearly leafless thorn-trees, usually growing rather wide 

 apart, occasionally close enough together to look almost 

 like a forest. There were a few palms, euphorbias, and 

 very rarely scattered clumps of withered bamboo, and also 

 bright green trees with rather thick leaves and bean pods, 

 on which we afterward found that the eland fed. 



The streams we crossed were dry torrent beds, sandy 

 or rocky; in two or three of them were pools of stagnant 

 water, while better water could be obtained by digging in 

 the sand alongside. A couple of hours after reaching each 

 camp everything was in order, and Ali had made a fire of 



