ACROSS LAKE CHAD 233 



** sleep for ground " before continuing our landless 

 passage to the Northern Nigerian shore. We could 

 not afford time to linger on the lake, and accordingly 

 the next day found us at Kika. 



When we landed Mrs Talbot and I went out on 

 a shell-collecting walk, and found fourteen different 

 varieties, including one very odd little fellow that was 

 as curly as a French horn. We had hardly started 

 before a hare got up beneath our feet, and in another 

 moment we came upon leopard and gazelle tracks. 

 Our amazement was great, for Kika is in the centre 

 of big open water, and miles away from the mainland. 

 The Buduma told us there was only one other island 

 with gazelle on it. We sent to tell Mr Talbot, w^ho 

 got his rifle, and in the course of a few moments saw 

 a dama gazelle, some tiny gazelle, and one that in 

 shape, colour, and size looked like a red deer, though 

 its horns were ringed and curved outwards and up. 

 Mr Talbot stalked it, but, alas ! in vain ; while I, being 

 weaponless, crouched down behind clumps of grass to 

 watch. Presently it came back and lay down within 

 fifty yards of me. I crawled to within twenty yards 

 before it saw me ; then it rose, looked full at me, 

 stamped, and walked slowly off. The species was 

 not recorded in our big-game book, which made its 

 escape exceedingly hard to bear ; so a drive was or- 

 ganised next morning, and we walked the island in 

 line. Our task was difficult, for the beaters were 

 untrained to the work and did not realise their 

 importance, so that the mass of game we saw escaped 

 into a big swamp that flanked the north and east 

 of the dry land. The island is about three-quarters 

 of a mile broad and two miles long. Mr Talbot very 



