118 CHIEFS & CITIES OF CENTKAL AFRICA 



blossom, scented the air with a delicious fragrance ; 

 and brilliant petunia convolvulus trailed along the 

 ground or climbed some bush, to fall again in gay 

 festoons. The swamp was half- disguised by thick 

 grass, which for hundreds of yards together waved 

 above our heads and enclosed us with a terrifying 

 completeness. We knew we could break through it 

 and trample it down, but there is no sense of direc- 

 tion where there is no landmark, and bush - cow or 

 lion might be watching us perhaps only two or 

 three yards away. There was no path, only tracks 

 made by wild beasts, and we often heard a trampling 

 of feet, the rustle of parting grass, and the suck, 

 suck of the bog as it closed over the footprints of 

 some herd we could not see. Instinctively Mr Talbot 

 would bring his rifle to his shoulder and pause and 

 peer, but it was seldom that he caught sight of 

 more than waving grass. If he had the good fortune 

 to see an antelope or wild boar, it was not often 

 that it escaped with its life. 



Sometimes we had to track a beast for half a mile 

 or more, tracing it by the blood-marks on the rank 

 reeds as it pushed its way into obscurity, — for even 

 when the wound was mortal the tenacity of life 

 was extraordinary. It was necessary to follow up 

 a wounded animal, for its fate in that country of 

 preying beasts and ants and other insects would be 

 unthinkably horrible. For this reason I did not 

 myself attempt to shoot, and my forbearance gave 

 satisfaction to one of my correspondents, who wrote 

 begging me " not to irritate the animals." 



Hunting was difiicult in this country of marsh, for 

 the water was up to our ankles, if not to our knees ; 

 and it was hard work to follow up each shot with a 



