RETURN TO LAKE RUDOLPH 



337 



their powers of marksmanship. Consequently, during my long 

 illness, the supply for my primitive lamp had run short. Now 

 the topi were always fat, and Feruzi, after a few experiments, 

 acquired the art of making their hard suet into candles, using a 

 large, hollow reed, split lengthwise, as a mould. Beeswax, 

 where obtainable, is also suitable ; but it is not easy to get, 

 even in honey districts, as the natives always swallow it. 



I obtained several fine heads about this time ; and although 

 I never allowed myself (nor would it be any pleasure to me) to 

 shoot anything which was 

 not wanted, the exercise 

 and diversion of keeping 

 up the supply of meat 

 occasionally, and at the 

 same time procuring 

 trophies, was a welcome 

 change to the monotony 

 of my life here during the 

 slow process of recovery, 

 and I could not have been 

 camped in a better situa- 

 tion for the purpose. It 

 was during the period of 

 convalescence, too, that I was so fortunate as to secure speci- 

 mens of my new hartebeeste. I had hopes of getting a young 

 topi alive, to bring to the coast, as the El Gume snare a 

 good many with nooses ; but, though I offered any price for 

 one, they never could make up their minds to forgo the feast 

 whenever a victim was caught. The snare is made of twisted 

 strips of hide, laid up exactly like the " neck-strop " used to 

 yoke bullocks in South Africa, with a running noose at each 

 end. A contrivance like a little wheel without a nave, with 

 an inordinate number of spokes (sharpened at the end point- 

 ing to the centre), is laid over a circular hole dug in a path 

 or crossing much frequented by game, and on the outer edge 



z 



A Native Game-Snare. 



