168 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
taken advantage of. In dense bush, stalking is often unsatis- 
factory and mere chance-work, as it is very difficult to avoid 
making a noise in getting through it, and disturbing the game 
before seeing it. Perhaps the prettiest, and often the easiest, 
stalking is done in park-like country, where there are both big 
trees, ant-heaps, and bushes dotted about, as well as grass 
some 18 inches high, to afford shelter to the stalker. In this 
district game is most abundant from September, when the 
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Easy stalking country 
young grass is just beginning to shoot after being burnt, to 
May, when it is long, coarse, and dry. 
The Kapite plains to the west and the Athi plains to the 
north-west of the Ukambani hills, with Machako’s as head- 
quarters, form another grand country with regard to the quantity 
of game in it, though it does not afford quite such a variety 
as the Kilimanjaro district ; and as the game is almost entirely 
confined to the vast, undulating, open, grassy plains, stalking 
