NATUEAL HISTORY 



299 



the open there are plains that during the rains become 

 swamps, but in the dry season are covered with long grass. 

 Here, when the natives have burnt the grass off, the buffaloes 



GOSLING S RHTSOCEROS 



dearly love to come in the early morning and feed upon 

 the young shoots that spring up among the blackened 

 stubs ; then when the sun gets up they saunter slowly back 

 to spend the rest of the day in the shady seclusion of the 

 thorn. 



In this country, too, there is plenty of giraffe, roan 

 antelope and pig. It was a fine sight to move a troop 

 of giraffe, perhaps forty or fifty in number, which, at the 

 sound of our approach, would gaze at us as we stood motion- 

 less and then with a rattle of hoofs on the hard ground 

 canter off in a cloud of dust to stop again a Httle farther off 



