96 SAVAGE SUDAN 



In the Sudan the roan is confined to forest, or at least to 

 bush-country, and avoids the open plain. Save when 

 merely crossing intervening prairie, I cannot recollect 

 ever having" seen these antelopes beyond a few hundred 

 yards from the nearest covert. 



Roan are more independent of water than any ot 

 their local neighbours. I can hardly think they require 

 to drink oftener than once a week, possibly twice. It is, 

 of course, difficult to prove a negative ; but never have 

 I seen roan near the river either at dawn or dusk, as 

 one sees all the rest. Twice I remember observing 

 troops of twenty to thirty striding down in stately single 

 file towards the river in mid-afternoon, and once a 

 company of seven at 1 1 A.M. ; and on each occasion their 

 gait left the impression that they had come from afar. 

 Roan, moreover, are great wanderers, and range inland 

 over arid areas that seem incompatible with a necessity 

 for drinking daily. 



Usually seen in small companies two or three up to 

 a dozen (though, as mentioned later, I once saw what 

 I thought might be a hundred together) roan are 

 decidedly exclusive in social taste. Seldom or never do 

 they herd with other species, and when seen in company 

 with tiang, it is the latter who have intruded ; at any 

 rate, if disturbed, the roan go off at once their own way. 



Despite their frequenting forest and bush usually 

 considered easy stalking - country roan are always 

 distinctly difficult of access. Beyond a doubt they are 

 extremely vigilant, and gifted with brilliant eyesight to 

 boot ; moreover, their great height gives them a command- 

 ing outlook. 



In writing the foregoing paragraphs I find myself in 

 this quandary that they seem to place me in opposition 

 to the recorded experiences of one of our greatest hunters 

 and observers, Sir Samuel Baker. 



During a whole year on the Nile Tributaries, Baker 

 records (pp. 475 and 484-5) that, "owing to their extreme 



