A RIDE THROUGH RHINO COUNTRY 313 



for nature provides far more males than are necessary for 

 reproduction. It is a pretty safe plan to select single bulls 

 feeding by themselves. They nearly always carry a good 

 horn. Oryx are sometimes rather difficult to approach, but 

 with these antelopes, as with all the big game I know of 

 in this country, perseverance is the sure road to success. 

 When you have selected the animal carrying the trophy, wait; 

 follow him, follow him as long as you can travel. If one 

 stalk fail, wait a while, sit down and smoke a pipe, and fol- 

 low him again. I have made four long and unsuccessful 

 stalks in one day, on oryx, then sat down and waited until 

 they began feeding at two miles off, then made my fifth 

 attempt and secured my head. A good bull oryx often 

 accompanies a large herd of zebra. It is therefore well to 

 look the herds of zebra over carefully with your glass. If 

 you can, separate your game from the zebra, as these often 

 make an approach impossible. Never be discouraged, even 

 in the morning you find the oryx almost unapproachable. 

 Later in the day you will in all likelihood secure an easy 

 .stalk. 



Six or eight miles up the Guasi Nyiro above its junction 

 with the Guasi Narok, and some three or four miles out on 

 the plain, among the giant kopjes that are here scattered over 

 the country, seems the favourite haunt of this splendid an- 

 telope. Let me add the warning I have repeated in another 

 chapter. Go up to a wounded oryx carefully. And above 

 all, when your gunbearer is hallaling him (cutting his 

 throat), stand clear of the sweep of his long sharp horn. He 

 can, even when dying, deliver a lightning-like sweeping 

 thrust. In this way one of our gunbearers, an old and care- 

 ful hand, was wounded in the leg. Lion have been found 

 dead, impaled on a dead oryx's horns. 



On these great game-browsed meadows, and around the 

 red granite kopjes that dot them, many lions still roam. 

 You will nightly hear their deep, coughing, grunting cry. 



