78 ON SAFARI 



elands about fifty strong, mostly females and young 

 beasts, but including a single large bull whose brisket 

 appeared to sweejD the ground. They had not noticed 

 us, and their onward direction indicated that they would 

 feed past quite near. What slight wind there was blew 

 in our favour, so we lay down in the deep grass and 

 waited. Presently the whole herd filed past from left to 

 right within easy shot. The big bull was, as usual, last 

 of all, and came on ver}'- slowly, often stopping. AVhether 

 some breath of suspicion were aroused or not, it is 

 impossible to say; but it certainly did happen that 

 before the great bull had arrived opposite our position, 

 first one small beast, then another, quietly dropped 

 astern of the herd and so surrounded his majesty that 

 there remained absolutely no point of his person on which 

 we could get a sight. His massive stubby horns and 

 the line of his back were the only indications of his 

 being there at all. We could do nothing to avert a 

 catastrophe, so lay still, and the elands passed out of 

 the picture in the same slow, dignified order in which 

 they had appeared. They simply faded away within the 

 fastnesses of the Laikipia, and our efforts all that day 

 failed to brino; us ao;ain within touch of them. 



" Next morning, skirting this plain towards the north, 

 we first spotted a bull giraffe, very black, but as he was 

 travelling faster than we could follow, we took no further 

 interest in him. We then entered a glade which 

 traversed the forest, and were approaching its outlet, 

 when my eye caught something moving in the open 

 beyond. Immediately thereafter the glade was occupied 

 by the form of a pig, which for a moment of time stood 

 gazing towards us — long enough for me to see that this 

 was something quite out of the common in the pig line. 

 Reddish-brown as to colour, with head shaped like that 

 of a bush-pig, its dimensions were what arrested atten- 

 tion. Whether by some optical delusion or not I could not 

 say, but this pig certainly appeared to me to stand well- 

 nigh as big as a zebra, say near four feet at the shoulder. 

 It was gone in a moment. AVe rushed forward to get 



