GIRAFFE 8i 



panied by a couple of Anuaks, started at dawn for 

 the foothills of Abyssinia, which one saw not so very 

 far away. Of course, I combined pleasure with busi- 

 ness. 1 made an abortive stalk at what I was told 

 was a lion. It turned out to be a tree stump, but 

 looked very life-like in the early morning. We then 

 plodded on, generally up to our knees in water, and 

 never completely out of it. Game tracks of elephants 

 and giraffe were particularly treacherous, as they 

 formed a line of pits. The country was fairly open, 

 but, though one heard the noise of quantities of game 

 splashing away, when they heard the awful din we 

 were making through the water, we only caught very 

 occasional and most tantalising glimpses of them. At 

 long last we came on some giraffe. I determined to 

 shoot one. In the first place, we wanted meat ; in 

 the second, this was Abyssinia ; and in the last, I had 

 no idea that they were, as a rule, so easy to shoot. 

 I had stalked to well within what General Mahon 

 calls the sportsman's maximum, i.e. 150 yards ; indeed, 

 I was almost within stone's-throw of them, when, turn- 

 ing round, I saw the Anuak to whom I had given my 

 helmet had put it on. I was much more concerned 

 in the future state of my hat than in the game. My 

 signals to him to take my helmet off only brought 

 him to my side ; but, strange to say, the giraffe, who 

 were on the move away from me, continued to graze 

 on the flat-topped mimosa-bushes about. I continued 

 my stalk, and was deciding which of two giraffe I 

 should try for — one was big and light in colour, the 

 other smaller but very dark — when the Anuak, unable 



