202 ON SAFARI 



retinue I Two otlier ostrich nests found that year by- 

 friends contained as many as twenty-seven and thirty- 

 four eggs respectively. The cock ostrich, being Uack 

 and conspicuous, sits on the eggs by night only, the 

 brown invisible hen taking the post of danger by day. 



As light strengthened the wide prairies were seen to 

 swarm w^ith game, chiefly zebras, gazelles and harte- 

 beests — the latter fearfully wild ; yet even at these great 

 distances the striking difference in the form of their 

 horns from those of B. neumcmni was perfectly distin- 

 guishable. The latter diverge at an acute angle re- 

 sembling the letter V, while those of B. col-ei spread out 



laterally before ascending like two capital L's — I I — • 



the second reversed. 



All the hartebeests carry the head in a rigid upright 

 position — that is, the long face, as viewed in profile, is 

 held almost at a right angle with the earth ; and the 

 curious effect is accentuated (especially in B. jacksoni) 

 by the set of the horns, which, rising fi^om long pedicles 

 in the same vertical plane, prolong the already ex- 

 travagant length of the head. 



The game being utterly inaccessible and my own 

 time so limited, I resorted to taking some rather reckless 

 shots. With shame I admit firing that morning more 

 cartridges than on any other clay in Africa. In the 

 result, I "fluked" a bull with a ball between the eyes, 

 and the next shot gave me a second — both at extreme 

 ranges. Though big bulls, neither carried a first-rate 

 head. 



From the spot where No. 2 fell on the ridge of a 

 rocky bluff we looked down upon the Athi River, its 

 course indicated by belts of brushwood and tall forest- 

 trees that fringe the banks. Spying from here, we made 

 out a group of ten wildebeests, standing listless in a 

 green corrie a mile away ; but with a single old bull 

 alert as sentry. These also proved wilder than wild, and 

 stalking j)ractically impossible. Though undulated, the 

 sloping gradients of this veld are altogether too spacious, 

 the angles too gentle, to afford any real advantage. 



