450 THE LAND OF THE LION 



Water-buck: 



The finest are to be had on the Nzoia. There, horns of 

 over thirty inches are not uncommon. This antelope 

 is one of the finest in East Africa, weighs about 600 pounds, 

 has a habit of concealing himself when wounded, and 

 should be approached with caution. A friend of mine 

 was almost killed by a buck he had wounded and which 

 he approached carelessly. The only hurt I received dur- 

 ing thirteen months' hunting was from a wounded water- 

 buck. All African antelope fall quickly to a shot well for- 

 ward in the shoulder. 



Kongoni : 



Coke's hartebeest and Jackson's hartebeest are the 

 two common kinds. Jackson's hartebeest is much the 

 finer of the two, weighing, I should say, almost one hun- 

 dred pounds more than Coke's. Jackson's is common on 

 the Nzoia and less frequently met with on the Aberdare and 

 the Mau Escarpment. 



There is an established belief that kongoni are unus- 

 ually hard to kill. I have not found this to be true. They 

 will fall as promptly to a well-placed bullet, even if it be 

 not bigger than the little .256 Mannlicher, as any other ante- 

 lope. Most men shoot all game much too far back. I 

 have been at times obliged to feed my sefari for many days 

 together on kongoni meat. There was famine in the 

 country and "potio" was unattainable. I have more than 

 once killed ten with ten consecutive shots (in about a week). 



I once shot three with three shots. The nearest lay 

 when I shot him 275 yards off, the farthest was 290 yards; 

 a circle with a diameter of thirty yards contained all three. 

 I always sat down for such long-range shooting, and invari- 

 ably used a small telescope sight. 



Eland: 



Eland are now very much more plentiful than they were 

 three years ago. Between the Athi and Theka rivers, north 



