BRITISH EAST AFRICA 197 



returning to camp Elmi saw a leopard stealthily 

 creeping cat-like among the rocks. He had 

 not seen us, so we crept very quietly up to 

 his feline lordship. Presently he lay down 

 and only the back of his head was visible 

 above the boulders. Resting my rifle on Elmi's 

 shoulder, I took a careful sight. Bang ! and 

 the leopard turned and dashed straight up a tall 

 tree about sixty or seventy yards from us. As 

 he dashed past, Elmi in his excitement fired at 

 him with a charge of buckshot. In the tree he 

 presented a much easier mark. He was growling 

 and snarling most ferociously, but I cut his bad 

 language short with a bullet that dropped him. 

 He came to the ground with a thud, and lay at 

 the foot of the tree scowling fight at us. I have 

 a great respect for leopards, so I let him have 

 another bullet, and that finished his career. 

 A porter carried the carcase back to camp with 

 great difficulty, and next morning the beast was 

 skinned, and the " safari " moved off up the 

 river again towards Kampi ya Nyama Yangu. 

 On the way I brought down a fine gerenuk ram. 

 The Waller's gazelle (Lithocranius walleri), or 

 " gerenuk," as it is called by the Somalis, 

 although resembling the true gazelles in face- 

 markings, is entitled almost to constitute a 

 genus unto himself, so different is this curious 

 animal to the Grant's, Thomson's and Peter's 

 gazelles of British East Africa, the springbuck of 

 South Africa, and the various other true gazelles 

 of Africa and Asia. One animal somewhat 

 closely resembles him, the dibatag, or Clarke's 

 gazelle of Somaliland, but the gerenuk exhibits 

 even greater elongation of neck than the dibatag. 

 Whether seen with fore-legs planted high 

 against a tree-trunk and head thrust up amongst 



