STALKING GAME. 1 19 



to another, and lasting over, perhaps, several months. Other game, such as 

 elephant and buffalo, trek off in a few hours to new grazing-grounds, often thirty or 

 forty miles distant. The plain-dwellers do not seem to trek at all, but gradually graze 

 their way from one locality to another. If their daily routine is carefully watched from 

 a distance it may be possible for the sportsman to forestall them at some point in their 

 daily round. For instance, it might be observed that they are usually seen in the 

 early morning on the slopes above a big stream, and gradually graze over one or two 

 rises, till at noon they come to a bottom with longer grass and muddy pools. In 

 this case a central position near the pools would be obviously the best position to 

 select, chosen so that movement could be made either to the right or left. Then, 

 when the game began to come over the slope, it would be seen which part of the 

 valley they were grazing towards, and one's position could then be changed for some 

 place in the game's direct front, whilst as yet they were far distant. 



Having said this, practically all that can be said about the art of bushcraft in 

 plain-shooting has been said. At its best it is but a poor sport when compared to that 

 of hunting. Practised as some people practise it, denying it the little art or bushcraft 

 that might be spent on it, it can hardly be said to rank even as a sport at all. 



About the plains themselves though, there is a fascination that seems to seize 

 hold of people and compel them to go there whether they wish it or not. I have felt 

 this impulse myself, and love to wander there. When embarking on their rolling wastes 

 you feel as if it were some great unknown sea on which you are setting sail. In their 

 midst you feel as absolutely out of touch with civilisation and all its horrors as if these 

 great billows of plains rising and falling were truly miles and miles of wild waves 

 separating you from the shore. Your tent is a little harbour on a desert island to 

 which you steer back at the end of each day's sail. There is only one thing more 

 wild and more fascinating than the plains, and compared to which they are but small 

 and tame, that is the desert. 



But to return to stalking on the plains. The whole art lies in the appreciation of 

 the contours of the country and of the relative positions of distant objects, also the 

 turning to account of the very scanty cover and the studying of the local habits of 

 the game. 



The stalker's true country is at the edge of the plains and in parts where the 

 slopes get steeper and the valleys turn into rocky nullahs (I am presuming, of 

 course, that the game condescends to graze there), then, by slowly topping the rises 

 and reconnoitring carefully in every direction with glasses or telescope, it is often 

 possible to locate animals in the distance and then stalk them to within one hundred 

 and fifty yards or even less. 



