chap. in. ELAND. 143 



and not another hundred yards of go left in me, I strug- 

 gled up after them, until my eye fell on the flat, and 

 found the eland, not two hundred yards away as I had 

 expected, but standing about ten yards from the brow of 

 the hill, the old bull blowing like a steam-engine. Of 

 course I instantly fired, but was so unsteady that I 

 missed clean, and they started off again, the cow and 

 young bull going together, and the old fellow taking his 

 own line. I gathered myself together, for another effort, 

 and after running several hundred yards I gave him 

 another shot, again missing, as could be told by the flying 

 dust beyond him, but it made him swerve round, during 

 which I thought he was going to fall, and then he pulled 

 up about sixty yards off, and stood and looked at me, his 

 lowered head and laboured breathing proving that he was 

 fairly done at last. I then sat down, and resting the gun 

 on my knees, tried to steady the sight upon him, but 

 finding it impossible, I had to give myself time. 



Even breathless and tired as I was, with my eland still 

 standing unwounded before me, I could not help admiring 

 the extreme beauty of the picture. Although I was on 

 the top of a mountain, it was a perfectly dead unbroken 

 flat all around that I could see from my seat, covered 

 with long waving grass white with seed, and among this 

 stood the eland with nothing else in sight, save where, 

 between him and the sun — which, low down, was pouring 

 a flood of light over his head and horns — a black spot 

 could be detected, ever growing larger and nearer, and 

 winch, had the poor brute seen and understood it, he 

 would have regarded as the harbinger of his fate. Uncon- 

 scious, however, of the descending vulture, as indeed he 



