AFTER ORYX AND ELAND— BARINGO 83 



heisa. There were not many — only nine or ten ; and 

 on the open prairie the task of approach appeared well- 

 nigh hopeless. 



For days our best efforts failed. Then (on August 

 27) I had the luck to find a pair, bull and cow, well 

 within the fringe of mimosa-scrub aforesaid. After a 

 stalk of about average difficulty I fired at the bull, but 

 missed. This shot was taken through the horizontal 

 branches of a thin thorn-bush, and as it was not much 







"beyond the low aloes" (oryx). 



over 100 yards, the ball had perhaps been deflected. 

 Not having seen us, the oryx, after one long burst, 

 gradually settled down, and an hour later I came up 

 wdth them again. They now stood on a perfectly open 

 flat of hard, bare, sun-baked mud. Islanded in the 

 midst of this was one patch of spiky aloes, twenty yards 

 wide and three feet high. Getting this in line, I essayed 

 that terrible crawl, 200 yards of cruel going, over brazen 

 clay studded with flints and dwarf cacti, as bad as 

 broken bottles. Yet the stalk succeeded. I have always 

 attributed that success to a remarkable instance of mis- 

 taken animal-instinct. Far out on the flat were g-uazino- 



