156 After Big Game in Central Africa 



arrive in haste, your antelope, which has the appear- 

 ance of being intact, is nothing more than a skin 

 stretched on a skeleton, emptied and cleared out in- 

 side. One after another, the vultures come out of 

 the aperture, and, gorged with meat, heavily fly away. 



This variety is called the turkey-buzzard because 

 of the rosy caruncles which ornament its head. When 

 they fight around a carcase they utter cries which 

 resemble those of a turkey ; and, like this bird, 

 they have a way of waddling in their walk which is 

 very comical. 1 



This reminds me of a little trick which we played 

 in Dahomey on an Italian naval captain. We sent 

 him in a cage four of these vultures, called there 

 akrassus, which act as scavengers in the district, 

 calling them turkeys of the country. He ate them 

 heartily, and replied to our letter asking him how he 

 liked them, " Un poco dure, ma buonissime " ("a 

 little hard, but very good"), adding that he was 

 keeping two of them to celebrate Christmas at 

 Castellamare, Naples. This incident remained legen- 

 dary, and we used to say, to express the ne plus 

 ultra of a feast, " There will even be a truffled 

 akrassu." 



I, too, should have very much liked to be 

 able to eat these turkeys ; that would have been a 

 precious gift in times of hunger ; but they give off a 

 repulsive smell like all the flesh which they touch, 

 and are generally only skin and bone. 



There is another species of vulture which, for 



1 The native name is magora. 



