VOYAGE UP WHITE NILE 69 



fixed and regular. They draw together into little groups 

 for the midday siesta and lie down, often a dozen together, 

 under the leafiest shade-tree available. They place no 

 sentries and all go to sleep in careless security. 



Besides these minor beauties, there were waterbucks 

 " Sing-sing," precisely similar to those already shot in 

 British East Africa ; also roan. Here I enjoyed my first 

 interview at close quarters with two of these latter 

 antelopes, and their bulk and imposing carriage left a 

 deep impression. The trophies carried by this particular 

 pair, however, were completely below my standard and 

 I left them unmolested. Another day, in an open glade 

 amidst scattered trees, my eye picked up three big red 

 beasts and, in fervent hope that they might be tiang a 

 species I had not then seen I manoeuvred to approach. 

 The three presumed strangers, however, proved to be 

 old friends, Jackson's hartebeest or its Sudan equivalent. 

 By a curious coincidence this trio happened to be the 

 only occurrence of Jackson's hartebeest that I met with 

 in life that year north of the Sudd. 1 



The particular forests which I happened first to 

 explore comprised great areas of closely growing saplings 

 standing so thickly as to stunt undergrowth. Such 

 conditions imply "difficult stalking" not only from the 

 absence of ground-covert, but by reason of a multitude 

 of obstructive stems right in the line of fire. This initial 

 experience led me to form what subsequently proved an 

 exaggerated estimate of the difficulties of forest-stalking 

 in the Sudan. The present chapter, however, is not 

 specially concerned with the bigger game. They will 

 be fully described later, each species separately. 



Large bustards (Eupodotis arabs] frequented these 

 woods apparently they were picking gum off the trunks 



1 Externally, I am unable to recognise either in Jackson's hartebeest 

 or in the roan antelope of Sudan, any visible characteristic sufficiently 

 outstanding as to justify much less to necessitate their specific differentia- 

 tion from their cousins further south. All these races in both cases are 

 practically identical each a continuing form of the other. 



