288 ON SAFARI 



epithet must be admitted — to me, those forests are 

 im^Dcnetrable. 



The bongo is a big beast, one of the heaviest of the 

 antelopes, standing 4 ft. at the shoulder and carrying 

 massive upright horns approaching a yard in length. 

 These, from their flattened, abruptly twisted form and 

 curve, clearly demonstrate the owner's affinity with the 

 bushbucks ; and the bongo, in systematic classification, 

 stands between that genus and the inyalas, or harnessed 

 antelopes. The existence of this animal was first made 

 known to science by Du Chaillu, who brought home a 

 skin from the Gaboon in West Africa ; and a mounted 

 specimen, a splendid bull, obtained by Mr. Isaacs, 

 formerly Commissioner at Eldama Ravine, may be seen 

 in the galleries of South Kensington. This animal was 

 followed persistently by native hunters with dogs and 

 spears till eventually, so densely grew the jungle, that 

 not even a bongo could further go. There it was over- 

 taken and killed. Other specimens have been obtained 

 by the same means ; but I believe that Mr. Isaacs did 

 not himself succeed in shooting a bongo. A female has, 

 however, recently been shot by Capt. Stigand, of the 

 King's African Rifies, in the Kikuyu Forest between 

 Limoru and Escarpment — thus extending the known 

 range of the bongo to the eastward of the great Rift 

 Valley — but leaving the bull bongo as yet unshot. 



Curious, yet not luminously intelligent, is the popular 

 interest displayed in such subjects. Some little time 

 ago the discovery of the okapi in the Congo forests 

 aroused almost an enthusiasm. Hardly a man, woman 

 or child but knew all about the okapi ; yet here in 

 British territory we have two great unknown animals 

 quite as interesting, but it is doubtful if one reader in 

 a hundred will ever have heard of them ! 



SiTUTUNGA. — Tixtgelaphus spekei. 



A water-loving antelope, confined to dense swamps 

 and beds of papyrus, chiefly, it appears, in the region of 

 Victoria Nyanza and upon one of the Sesse Islands in 



