280 BIG GAME SHOOTING 
degree of skill required, there is more sport to be had in out- 
witting the ever-watchful oryx or wildebeest or eland than in 
killing either a rhinoceros or buffalo—beasts peculiarly easy to 
stalk unless accompanied by birds, as already described. In 
antelope stalking, from the beginning to the end of the business 
the greatest care has to be exercised, lest an incautious move- 
ment, either of the stalker or the gun-bearer who crawls behind 
him, should alarm the watchful game; and the anxiety lest 
something of this kind should occur, coupled with the physical 
strain in crawling on the hands and knees or flat upon the 
stomach during a long stalk, intensifies the satisfaction when 
the hunter does succeed in outwitting them. 
At certain seasons of the year, when the grass has grown 
18 ins. or 2 ft. high, stalking is comparatively easy even in 
the open plains, and requires then nothing but endurance on 
the stalker’s part to enable him to succeed. But stalking is a 
very different business when the grass has been burnt and there 
is no covert except a few skeleton bushes and small ant-heaps, 
or a few patches of grass which have escaped the fire. 
But perhaps the accompanying diagrams of three stalks 
which I made myself will give a better idea of the way to take 
advantage of very scanty covert than any written advice. 
In the alluvial plains, which extend for a considerable 
distance on each side of the banks of a perennial river, the 
country is often interspersed with large shady trees which give 
it a park-like appearance. In such places, among scattered 
mimosa-trees, occasional bushes, and a few ant-heaps, stalking 
is not difficult, and it is in such places that elands, water- 
bucks, impalas, and buffaloes are often found. In open bush, 
where game is frequently seen by the sportsman within a couple 
of hundred yards, a stalk, though sometimes rather difficult, is 
generally short. To approach within range of antelopes in 
thick bush is not nearly so much a test of skill in stalking as 
of quick sight and ability to walk quietly and to pass through 
bush without making a noise. Quick shooting is also necessary, 
and the rest depends a good deal on whether one’s lucky star 
= —S ee ee, 
