CHAPTER XXIV 



STRAY NOTES ON EAST-AFRICAN GAME 



I. Ox Certaix Antelopes not met with 



Bongo. — Ti -agelaphus euryceros. 



The fact appears incredible that any large wild animal, 

 carrying, moreover, a splendid trophy, should exist close 

 hv — as this does at Eldama Ravine, within twenty or 

 thirty miles of the Uganda railwa}^ — and yet defy our 

 best sportsmen. And not the' bongo alone, for in these 

 same tropical forests of the ]\Iau and of Laikipia there 

 also lurks unseen and unshot the oiant forest-hos;, that 

 has been christened (from some fragments of skin and 

 bone obtained from natives) Hylochcerus meinertzha- 

 geni?- 



The apparent paradox tones down considerably when 

 one comes to see the chosen home of these two unknown 

 animals. It is what is commonly described as " impene- 

 trable forest ; " and thereby, if language means anything 

 at all, the nwstery is explained at once. But is any 

 forest impenetrable ? I should have doubted the 

 possibility had I not myself seen these forest-jungles of 

 the ]Mau. Penetrable in limited degree, slowly and 

 laboriously, they may be ; anything beyond that must 

 be only for the fuUest vigour of youth, when keenness 

 and physical power admit no bounds. That age, in my 

 case, having already been doubled, the uncompromising 



^ My friend Mr. Rowland Ward writes me that one or two 

 examples have quite recently (June 1908) been secured in British 

 East Africa — one by Col. Watkins Yardley in the Kenya district, 

 and a fine boar in the Mau Forest. 



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