254, IN AFRICA 



The doe is not pretty, being thickly and clumsily 

 built, with a heavy, ungraceful neck, but the buck 

 is like a painting by Landseer, noble, graceful, 

 and beautifully marked with white and black on his 

 dark gray coat. 



We didn't kill many waterbuck, because there is 

 no excuse for doing so except to secure the heads as 

 trophies. The meat is so coarse and tough that 

 even the porters, who seldom draw the line at eat- 

 ing anything their teeth can penetrate, do not care 

 for waterbuck meat except under the stress of 

 great hunger. They do like the skin, however, for 

 it is of the waterbuck skin that their best sandals 

 are made. Consequently, when a waterbuck is 

 killed there is a fierce scramble among the porters 

 to secure portions of the hide for this purpose. 



The male waterbucks are savage fighters among 

 themselves, and it was not uncommon to see big 

 bulls with one horn gone or with both horns badly 

 broken or marred as a result of the jealous strug- 

 gle for dominance of a herd of does. 



The topi is something like the hartebeest, but 

 much more beautiful and much more rare. It is 

 over four feet high, with skin of a dark reddish 

 brown, with a silklike bluish gray gloss. On the 

 shoulders and thighs are bluish black patches and 

 the forehead and nose are blackish brown. The 

 under parts are bright cinnamon. We ran across 

 this beautiful antelope only on the Guas Ngishu 

 Plateau, although it is found in one or two other 

 districts in East Africa. In all our weeks of 



