198 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



boughs five or six feet from the ground, or 

 quietly steahng away into the friendly cover of 

 the bushes with neck out-thrust, the gerenuk is 

 as grotesque as he is interesting. In height he 

 averages about three feet three inches at the 

 shoulder, but his neck is of such extraordinary 

 length that sprigs and leaves growing almost 

 twice that height above the ground can be 

 reached by a full-grown ram by placing his 

 fore-legs against a tree. This curious character- 

 istic is well known to the natives. One often 

 hears an East African " pagazi " or " safari " 

 porter speak of the gerenuk as the " twiga 

 kidogo," or little giraffe. There are, as a matter 

 of fact, two or three points of resemblance 

 between these two animals, so vastly different 

 in bulk and colour. Both, for instance, are 

 possessed of extraordinary eyesight as well as 

 remarkable length of neck. Both, too, select 

 as their environment the fringes of desert land — 

 dry, arid, sandy country, sparsely covered with 

 bush. 



In Somaliland and Northern British East 

 Africa gerenuk find their ideal conditions. During 

 my two weeks' sojourn on the Northern Guaso 

 Nyiro river I saw large numbers of these 

 gazelles, and after a great deal of hard work and 

 many disappointments, I managed to secure 

 four " Waller's." They are exceedingly in- 

 quisitive and wary animals, and whilst apparently 

 not possessed of very keen scent, they seem to 

 be continually peering at you from over the tops 

 of short, stunted bushes. The long serpent- 

 shaped necks of an indefinite rufous-fawn colour, 

 with horns fourteen or fifteen inches long, and 

 curved forward at the tips (in the males only) 

 surmounting them, are generally all that one 



