THE FIRST KLIPSPRINGER 



porcupine, had left it in its burrow, not knowing how 

 seldom they are bagged ; and, when he returned for it 

 early in the morning, nothing was left but a few quills. 



Next day we moved into more open country, in a 

 wide valley, with a steep cliff to our right. We had 

 hired ten camels to lighten the loads of our feeble ones, 

 and to carry water across the desert ahead of us. H. 

 had the luck to find an ant-bear asleep above ground. 

 He was snoozing in a tunnel through an ant-hill, open 

 at both ends, and was soon bolted with a stick and shot. 

 In the afternoon I climbed tht- cliff in search of greater 

 kudu, but only found some old tracks. On the way 

 down 1 saw a couple of klipspringer, bounding from 

 rock to rock. They were rather far off, the light was 

 bad, and a strong gusty wind blowing ; but my luck held 

 good, and the first shot knocked one over. The descent 

 was very steep, and we had in one place to bodily lift 

 the pony down. 



On Sunday morning I started off towards the cliff 

 where I had shot the " sas.sa " (to give the klipspringer 

 its Abyssinian name), intending to work along the top, 

 while the caravan moved down the valley. On the way 

 we found a lesser kudu, which I wounded twice before 

 bringing to bag. Before reaching our new camp at 

 Orthar, we passed the body of one of our camels sur- 

 rounded by jackals, vultures, and great marabout storks. 

 I tried a couple of shots at the latter with no effect, and 

 then killed a guley. The camp was a pleasant one, 

 pitched under some fine trees and l)y the side of a good- 

 sized river. Here, for the first time since we started, 

 we had a zariba or thorn-tree barricade built round our 



