BRITISH EAST AFRICA 199 



sees, as the wily animal seldom allows his pursuer 

 to come within seventy or eighty yards of him. 

 Until one has actually slain his gerenuk it is 

 difficult to realize what a remarkable length of 

 neck there is, and the shoulder shot when fired 

 at a covered mark generally goes high. The 

 neck itself is exceedingly thin and difficult to 

 hit, especially in tangled bush. Moreover, the 

 smash of a bullet spoils the trophy in the case 

 of a gerenuk or dibatag, if hit in the neck, 

 much more so than in the case of any other 

 animal. 



Shot after shot I missed at these beasts, and 

 although I stalked them for hours at a time, it 

 was some days before one at last fell to my rifle. 

 Unfortunately this was a doe, which I mistook 

 for a ram, some stunted thorn-tree boughs 

 immediately behind her making it appear that 

 she carried horns. The next evening, however, 

 I shot a good ram carrying 13|-inch horns, 

 and a few days later secured two more males, 

 one with a 14|-inch head, which is well-nigh up 

 to the top record of British East Africa, though 

 considerably below the best for Somaliland, 

 where horns go up to as much as seventeen 

 inches. Still I was exceedingly pleased at getting 

 these specimens, as I consider that any one may 

 well be proud of securing any kind of gerenuk 

 head. Hunting these elusive animals calls for 

 exercise of those qualities of patience, eyesight 

 and judgment, which are the stock-in-trade of 

 a big-game hunter, in a greater degree than almost 

 any other antelope that graces the African 

 continent. 



North of the Guaso Nyiro is a great desert 

 land sparsely peopled by nomads — Rendile and 

 Borani shepherds, Somali and Abyssinian traders 



