THE BUSH. 153 



game than the plains. So there might be quite a number of animals about, and 

 perhaps close at hand, whilst you spend whole days hunting and seeing nothing. It is 

 then that the use of spoor is obvious. For if after several blank days you have seen 

 no fresh spoor, the conclusion is that there cannot be many animals in the locality. 

 If, on the other hand, you find plenty of spoor everywhere, it is always an encourage- 

 ment to go on in the hopes of doing better next time. In bush-hunting it is the 

 constant failures which goad one on to further efforts, and make success when it 

 comes so well worth the reaping. 



The melancholy return to camp after a long and unsuccessful day, the while 

 ruminating over some lost chance, is so different from the jubilant return of the 

 successful hunter. With him the long miles seem to slip past with lightning speed. 

 He seems to walk on air, and this notwithstanding that he is possibly carrying a 

 heavy head and a pair of horns on his shoulders, whereas had he been unsuccessful 

 the miles would have seemed unending and the journey tedious, although he was 

 unburdened with heavy spoil. 



Now for a little picture of a few days spent in the bush. 



You are camped just on the edge of the bush bordering a plain, and directly below 

 camp is a stream-bed to which various game paths descend, thus marking the places 

 where pools of water have survived the drought of the dry weather. An early start 

 is necessary, to catch if possible some animal out grazing away from cover, and your 

 first step is to skirt along the edge of the plain, keeping close to the bush and 

 inspecting all the little inlets of plain running into the bush, which form favourite 

 places for bushbuck to come out into during the early morning hours. If a bushbuck 

 is seen he should be approached by keeping, if possible, just inside the edge of the 

 bush and thus intercepting his retreat. 



I will assume, however, that the early morning inspection proves unfruitful ; then 

 the next step is to follow the edge of the stream-bed to see if anything has been down 

 to drink at the pools during the night. It is not necessary to descend the steep bank 

 into the nullah to learn this ; instead you cross the nullah by the first game track 

 met with, and then pass down the other or bush side, of the watercourse, inspecting 

 carefully all the game tracks leading down into it. 



Yesterday after pitching camp the porters who went down to draw water reported 



having seen a rhino drinking at the pool just below camp. An inspection of the 



tracks about this pool shows that a rhino did drink there, but it was on the night 



before you camped, so it is obvious that the porters could not have exactly seen the 



rhino. It is, however, a quite pardonable error on their part, for they had thought 



that the tracks were fresher than they really were, and that the rhino had therefore 



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