166 ON SAFAKI 



l)iofp-est beast witliiii a short league of each other ! 

 We also observed ostrich-poults, half-grown. 



Another clay, however, was memorable for shattering 

 to atoms any complacent sentiment of self-assurance that 

 success only follows on deserts, or that achievements are 

 always proportioned to skill, perseverance, or other 

 personal equalities. Those who exclude the element of 

 chance from their creed may be interested in some notes 

 from that day's experience. So far as the writer can 

 remember, they stand unique in over forty years 

 of shooting-life. 



It was a dull misty dawn, with a wet haze hanging- 

 over the marshes, wdience resounded the sonorous cries 

 of the great Kavirondo cranes, while all around our camp 

 the bush was alive with the matutinal chorus of doves and 

 francolins and the cackle of guinea-fowl in the thorny- 

 scrub abov^e. Telling my brother I intended to shoot an 

 eland, I set out w^ith my gun-bearers in the half-light. 

 We ascended the hill behind our camp, and were walking 

 in single file towards the west when I espied close ahead 

 a waterbuck bull (de/assa) feeding in an open glade 

 surrounded by bush. Strnngoly, with three pairs of 

 keen eyes on the look-out, none had detected him in 

 time ; for before the rifle could be handed, the big buck, 

 though unalarracd, had moved forward out of sight, still 

 feeding. Eventually the shot was one of those, in bush, 

 at " horns only," with a conjectural body beneath that 

 may be standing in any conceivable relation thereto ; 

 the distance also was much greater, and the result a miss. 

 The direction of the spoor coinciding with our intended 

 route, we followed on ; but presently coming on the crest 

 of a sudden escarpment, sighted four hartebeest on the 

 plain far below. After a detour, I got a steady lying shot, 

 and the best of the four (300 yards away and 200 feet 

 below) dropped and lay motionless. It cost us half-an- 

 hour finding a way down those crags, and then . . . that 

 l)ull was gone ! Neither spoor nor blood served us on 

 such ground — half rock, half bush ; and we saw him no 

 more. Holding our course, we shortly viewed what we 



