128 SAVAGE SUDAN 



bethought ourselves of a plan to get rid of these super- 

 fluous friends, and presently sat down to explain it. 

 Much palaver flowed ere the scheme dawned on their 

 minds ; then, having sorted out the savages into con- 

 venient groups, I instructed them to set out separately, 

 each party scouting for game in certain specified direc- 

 tions which, however, excluded the windward. Upon 

 finding game, they were instructed to return and report to 

 us at the spot where we then sat. Ten minutes later, so 

 soon as all their gangs were well out of sight in the thick 

 bush, we proceeded alone, upwind, and, after a while, felt 

 assured that our plan had succeeded. 



Several hours had elapsed when, among rather open 

 bush, we descried a herd of thirty waterbuck which at 

 once struck us both as being totally different from any 

 we had ever seen before. They were all of a light rufous 

 fawn-colour, which at once reminded me of the plate 

 entitled " Cobus defassa" in The Book of Antelopes 

 (vol. ii., p. 115), the accuracy of which plate I had 

 myself questioned (as regards colour only) in my On 

 Safari,^. 24. 



The herd now before us was chiefly composed of 

 females and small beasts, but included five bulls, one 

 conspicuously finer than his colleagues in fact, quite a 

 warrantable specimen. Him I resolved to possess, 

 tempted thereto by his wholly unusual colour and by 

 the desire to settle once for all (at least in my own 

 mind) any question of racial distinctions among these 

 waterbuck of the Sudan. The stalk itself presented no 

 special difficulty, the deep grass being nicely studded 

 with trees, and succeeded all right. 



At little over 100 yards my bullet had taken the 

 bull quite fair on the shoulder a blow that in nine 

 cases out of ten signifies instant death ; yet the stricken 

 beast merely moved a step or two forward and stood, 

 head down, beneath a tree. While debating in my mind 

 whether another shot was needed . . . suddenly, from 



