26 SAFARI 



long necks and an undertaker's look swooped above 

 their quarry, or sat in grim circles around a dying 

 zebra, waiting for him to die and sometimes hasten- 

 ing on his end by climbing on his panting striped 

 withers and pecking at his glazing eyes. 



Osa bagged some game birds and spent much time 

 at fishing in the Isiolo. The stream was so covered 

 with green vegetation floating on its surface that 

 often when I came towards her, it seemed as if she 

 were pulling the carp-like silver fish right out of the 

 grass. 



Where we roamed either on the plains, or in the 

 scrub coxmtry south of the river, we saw great droves 

 of native goats and cattle. It was sort of a general 

 hegira, for the different tribesmen were bringing 

 down their herds from the frontier for trading in the 

 south. McDonough, as head of the quarantine 

 station, had his hands full; the cattle here are 

 afflicted quite as they are in the Argentine or Texas ; 

 those on one side of the river being subject to hoof 

 and mouth disease, those on the other, to fever. 



Rattray's place itself was fascinating. With 

 his manyettas or corrals of upright palings, his 

 bomas or barricades of thorn-bush, tame oryxes 

 running around loose, spur fowl breeding with Ply- 

 mouth Rocks in his dooryard, and tamed zebras 

 learning to trot in double or single harness, his ranch 

 looked like a zoo. 



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t 9 • •^••f4»«, 



