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CHAPTER IX 



HINTS ON EAST AFRICAN STALKING, DRIVING, ETC. 



BY F. J. JACKSON 



IN East Africa, up to the present, all shooting has been done 

 entirely on foot, as horses have not yet been introduced into 

 the country, with the exception of two or three which have been 

 sent up to Uganda. It is to be hoped that when horses are 

 more generally employed (and there is no reason at present 

 known why they should not be, provided the belts of ' fly ' 

 country are avoided), they will not be used in the pursuit of the 

 herds of game, as they have been and still are in South Africa 

 and the Somali country. There can be little doubt that 

 it is owing to this almost universal custom in South Africa 

 of riding down game that it has been exterminated or driven 

 away from so many parts of the country ; and it is not 

 improbable that in the Somali country a similar result will fol- 

 low from the same cause. When pursued on horseback, game 

 is for the most part on the move when shot at, often at full 

 gallop, and at much longer ranges than when stalked, and 

 therefore many more beasts are wounded and lost when horses 

 are used than when fairly outwitted by the stalker and shot at 

 when standing still. 



It is supposed by a good many people that the tsetse fly 

 only exists where game beasts, especially buffaloes, are most 

 plentiful, and that the fly disappears as the game is killed off 

 or driven away. This may be so in South Africa, but it is 

 certainly not the case in East Africa, as the belts of fly country 



