156 LARGE GAME. chap. hi. 



lopes and koodoos, both of which species are very common 

 here. The guns kept skirmishing about on either side of 

 the line of march, sometimes, guided by the honey-bud, 

 robbing a bees' nest, but, more generally, unsuccessfully 

 following some of the gnu which were feeding on the 

 surrounding ridges. At last, when we were all together, 

 a herd of sassabi were seen, and after a rapid and success- 

 ful stalk we found ourselves within one hundred and 

 twenty yards of where they were grazing, and were not 

 long in sending six bullets in among them. The one I 

 aimed at fell, my second barrel being a somewhat random 

 affair, as also did another, but it recovered and went on, 

 and A. wounded a third. H., however, at once claimed 

 mine, suggesting that I had probably hit the one that had 

 got away, and, as it was all a mere matter of assertion, the 

 bullet having gone through the body, I tossed him for it, 

 and he won, though, in my mind, there was not a shadow 

 of a doubt on the subject, as I had never taken my eye 

 off the animal, and all H. could say, when pressed, was 

 that he fired in that direction. 



Nothing more was killed, and late in the afternoon we 

 found ourselves at our destination, where we were greeted 

 with the intelligence that a large herd of elephants had 

 passed two days previously, but as the country about was 

 open, without any covers, and merely dotted over with 

 scattered thorn-trees, there was no chance of their stand- 

 ing within thirty miles of us. 



The next day, glad of the opportunity, I went out 

 alone, and succeeded in bagging two doe sassabi, while A. 

 killed one, and H. nothing. The sassabi (Bubalus lunata) 

 is very rarely, if indeed ever, found to the southward of 



