210 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



Jackson's hartebeeste, or the oryx, or whatever 

 I was stalking at the time has gone madly away. 



But sometimes the warning is quite silent. 

 The guardian animals that you do not want to 

 shoot seem to realize their safety, and you may 

 be wholly hidden from the game you are after 

 and with the wind absolutely in your favour. 

 Then it is, I believe, that wild animals employ 

 some form of sympathetic telepathy. The 

 animals in safety signal across a silent warning to 

 their friends in jeopardy, and you sight your 

 rifle on a cloud of dust. I do not think this is 

 a far-fetched idea. After all, what do we know 

 of the reasoning of the animal mind, we who 

 cannot understand our own ? 



When the Thomson's gazelle had scurried 

 away, I increased my efforts to get the " Grant's," 

 especially as the day was beginning to wane and 

 camp was a long way off. At last I saw the 

 three rams I had been pursuing for so long 

 standing together, alternately cropping at the 

 grass on the plains, and raising their graceful 

 heads in search of danger. It seems terrible 

 and cruel that the fairest of God's wild creatures 

 should live in an everlasting agony of fear : 

 terror of the slaughtering maniacs who carry a 

 rifle by day ; terror of the prowling lion, the foul, 

 cunning leopard, or the cheetah — the animal that 

 kills its prey by strangulation — when darkness 

 has sent the big-game hunter to his bed. But it 

 is a decree of Creation, a decree as pitiless as 

 it is unalterable, and all the antelopes in Africa 

 outside of " zoos " and the two-mile sanctuary of 

 the Uganda Railway have come to realize it. 



These were not my reflections, however, as 

 I crept up behind the cover of a bush to the 

 three rams. At such times one can only think 



