GAME DISTRICTS AND ROUTES 167 



mountain, at an elevation of from 7,000 to 10,000 feet, where 

 it would be practically useless to attempt to follow them. 

 About April they begin to leave this forest belt, and work their 

 way down to the undulating country at the base of the 

 mountain. This country is covered with bush, long grass 

 (in places ten to twelve feet high), with plenty of mimosa 

 and other trees scattered about, as well as with clumps 

 of dense bush and large forest trees ; and as it is well watered 

 by numerous streams flowing from the mountain, which, 

 lower down, form the Kikavo, Weri-weri, and other rivers, 

 the elephants get plenty of food, and evidently find it alto- 

 gether congenial to their habits, as very few of them wander 

 into British territory. Within a few marches round Taveta the 

 sportsman will come across every kind of country in which 

 game is to be met with, from the bare, covertless, open plain, 

 the haunt of the wildebeest, oryx, Grant's gazelle, Thom- 

 son's gazelle, c., the ostrich, and the great bustard, besides 

 the everlasting zebra and Coke's hartebeest, to the dense and 

 almost impenetrable forest in which is found the elephant and a 

 small duyker-like buck (Cephalolophus Harveyi). The district 

 is varied by open bush, where the stalker can see game when 

 three or four hundred yards off; dense bush, where it is im- 

 possible to see anything until pretty close up to it ; and sparsely 

 timbered country, quite park-like in appearance. 



Here every kind of stalking has to be practised. At one 

 time the stalker must crawl painfully along, flat on his stomach, 

 for long distances to get a shot at one of the wilder or scarcer 

 antelopes ; at another he must walk cautiously along in dense 

 forest, with a thick covering of dead leaves on the ground, 

 trying his utmost to tread lightly and noiselessly, and to avoid 

 stepping on some fallen branch hidden away in the leaves, the 

 snap of which would scare whatever he might be after, be it 

 elephant or small duyker buck. In open bush i.e. bush which 

 is sufficiently open to enable the stalker to see the game when 

 about a hundred yards off stalking is generally easy work, as 

 there are often plenty of ant-heaps, besides bushes, to be 



