282 SAVAGE SUDAN 



you to take on a buffalo and, to be candid, I will back 

 Bos Caffer.' But I was wrong-. After that, a buffalo 

 did tackle him but he got through all right. ... I did 

 not then reckon on MAN ; but assuredly we shall learn, 

 when details come through, that it was only numbers 

 overwhelming numbers that did it." This prediction 

 has proved quite true. Stigand lay surrounded by dead 

 Dinkas. Retribution, it gratifies to add, followed prompt 

 and exemplary. 



Delightful are the open woodlands behind Mongalla 

 and full of happy memories. Of big-game the reed- 

 bucks show exceptionally fine heads up to 1 5 inches 

 and abound to the extent of being- a nuisance, as they 

 often interfere with a more important stalk. There is 

 also a sprinkling of bushbuck, though here, as else- 

 where, their nocturnal habits tend to screen these from 

 observation. 



Both roan antelope and cob are common enough 

 locally, as is also Jackson's hartebeest, with possibly 

 some few of "Neumann's," of which latter Lieut. G. P. 

 Monk shot an example in 1914. Waterbuck and tiang 

 abound, with some ostriches and buffalo locally. We 

 met with wart-hog and duiker (the latter a little north 

 of Mongalla), oribi and gazelles the latter, doubtless, 

 of the newly-distinguished "Mongalla" species (Gazella 

 albonotata), though I was unaware of its existence 

 at the time. 



Giraffe abound ; also zebra, Major Stigand informed 

 me, in increasing numbers, herds of fifty or more 

 occurring within 10 or 20 miles of Mongalla this, the 

 northernmost race of zebra, being characterised by 

 having pure white ears. Black rhinoceros, though rela- 

 tively scarce according to East-African standard, are 

 also increasing and described as "apt to be truculent," 

 though that may signify no more than their well- 

 understood and characteristic temperament. I struck 

 new spoor of rhinoceros inland of Bohr. Eland have 



