BRITISH EAST AFRICA 209 



the Southern Guaso Nyiro River, which runs 

 through some of the best Sotik game country. 

 The morning after our arrival at Kijabe we came 

 to terms with Mr. Postma in the matter of 

 transport, gave directions for the wagon to wait 

 for us on the eastern side of Mount Margaret, 

 saddled up and rode off. We soon began to see 

 a little game — ungainly Coke's hartebeestes, a 

 few pig and a herd or two of Grant's gazelle. 

 But they were all very wild, and it was not till 

 late evening that I managed to bring down a 

 Grant's gazelle of the variety " Typica." I had 

 been after this herd for an hour or more on the 

 western side of Mount Margaret. 



Time after time they had fled in precipitous 

 fear just as I was on the point of firing at a ram 

 with what seemed a particularly good pair of 

 horns. Five or six little Thomson's kept hover- 

 ing round the Grant's, and acted the annoying 

 part of sentinels. I crawled and crept after the 

 desired trophy, taking advantage of every particle 

 of cover in the shape of bushes and grass tussocks 

 that offered. But time after time, too, the 

 " Tommies " anticipated my shot and, with 

 tails perpetually flicking from side to side, they 

 would dash away, attended, of course, by the 

 Grant's. There are few things more tantalizing 

 in big-game hunting than this. Zebra are a 

 particular nuisance in every part of Africa where 

 large wild animals abound, and many and many 

 a time I have cursed them with all the vehemence 

 I could lay my tongue to. Often when about to 

 take an easy shot at some particularly coveted 

 antelope, I have heard the ground thunder 

 with the sound of hundreds of galloping hoofs, 

 and a great drove of striped horses has dashed 

 away towards the sky-line, and with them the 



