ADVENTURES IN CAMP AND JUNGLE. 117 



dead in his tracks ; and on going up to him I found that ^the 

 ball had struck him on the back of the head, just below his 

 horns. My friend, who had been watching my proceedings 

 from a distance, came up, exclaiming, " What a fluke ! " and 

 though I pointed out to him that no sportsman worthy of the 

 name would fire at anything but a buck, and that the back of 

 the head was the correct place to strike a retreating deer, I 

 fear he was not convinced. 



Another singular shot was made by one of our party. He 

 fired at a buck antelope, and struck it on the side of the horn, 

 about three inches above the head. The effect of the shot 

 was to wrench off the horn from the spiral bone which it 

 covered. In fact it was simply unscrewed, and by the force 

 of the shot was sent spinning several feet into the air. 

 The buck escaped, but my friend brought the horn into 

 camp ; and its appearance fully explained this remarkable 

 shot. 



At the southern end of the Nul were immense plains, 

 covered with high grass. These plains were many miles 

 in extent ; and during the heat of the day, when the 

 whole atmosphere was trembling with heat and mirage, 

 we had often no little difficulty, after shooting, to find our 

 way back to camp. Large herds of antelope lay, during the 

 day, in the long grass, coming in at nightfall to the cultivated 

 lands, and returning to the grass at sunrise. Between the 

 grass and the cultivation was a dead level plain, almost bare 

 of vegetation, over which the deer were wont to cross in the 

 early morning. Having marked the most frequented lines, 

 we had pits, four feet deep, dug in this plain. Care was taken 

 to spread all the excavated earth at a distance, so that the 

 surface of the ground should present no unusual appearance. 

 Moving out from our tents before daylight, we took up our 



