356 SAVAGE SUDAN 



compares my description (as above) of the ariel in Sudan 

 with those of our standard authorities, he must perceive' 

 at a glance that the two versions differ diametrically, 

 chiefly as regards the personal appearance of the animals, 

 but, in minor degree, respecting its haunts and its 

 habits. 



It is with reluctance that one seems even superficially 

 to place oneself in quasi - contradiction to other and 

 thoroughly reliable observers, whose opportunities of study 

 have been as great or greater than my own. I do not, 

 in fact, do so, since the areas differ ; but the accepted 

 descriptions of the "aoul" in Somaliland differ so diamet- 

 rically from my impression of the "ariel" in Sudan that 

 the point is worth raising. Thus in the Book of Antelopes, 

 vol. iii., and in Rowland Ward's Great and Small Game 

 of Africa (both standard works), I find the following 

 epithets applied to the ariel : " Heavy clumsy coarse 

 thick-set ungraceful lacking in grace and beauty 

 heavily-built sheep-like," etc. They amaze me, but 

 may nevertheless be correct ; if so, there must exist 

 an unparalleled divergence between two local races 

 of one species. The ariel of Sudan can only be de- 

 scribed in terms precisely the reverse as my rude 

 sketches may serve to show. 



One other point in this connection. In my book On 

 Safari (p. 126), I recorded seeing certain unrecognised 

 gazelles at Lake Elmenteita in British East Africa, 

 which were confidently identified by my Somali gunbearer, 

 Elmi Hassan, as "aoul" ( = ariel); but the very descrip- 

 tions of the "aoul" just quoted, convinced me that Elmi 

 must have been mistaken. But now, after having seen 

 the animal in life, that conviction is shaken. The Equator 

 seems a long way south of the ariel's known range ; but 

 when the vast deserts that separate the administered 

 areas of British East Africa from Somaliland and 

 Abyssinia become zoologically better known, it may 

 conceivably be found that ariel, on occasion, do wander 



