BRITISH EAST AFRICA 211 



in terms of game and shooting. Some unhappy 

 incident must have caused the Grant's to look 

 for danger in exactly the opposite direction to 

 the fateful bush. I got within about eighty yards 

 of the trio and steadied my rifle, elbow on knee. 

 For a moment the dying glare of the sun blinded 

 me. Then I saw the three rams had their heads 

 turned to the last glory of the day. One suddenly 

 whipped around and snorted, but before he 

 could move my bullet sped into the neck of the 

 finest gazelle and he toppled over dead. It was 

 then that Elmi, my Somali hunter-boy, dashed 

 up from behind me and cut the head and neck 

 off while I rode through the dusk to the wagon 

 and the cheerful fires that burned around it. 



This Grant's gazelle was of the " Typica " 

 variety — Gazella granti Typica. The horns are 

 very long and lyrate, and are more divergent 

 than those of the " Notata " species, which 

 I had seen in great numbers between Mount 

 Kenia and the Abyssinian frontier. They lack 

 the spread of the " Robertsi " variety — a species 

 of buck which we saw and shot in Sotik — but 

 they make very handsome trophies. Indeed 

 I know of no buck in Africa which for its size 

 — a Grant's averages about thirty-three inches 

 at the shoulders — carries such a large and sym- 

 metrical head as this noble and stately gazelle. 



One has to be a sound sleeper to slumber 

 peacefully on an ox-wagon, travelling a rough 

 path. But a hard day's hunting on an African 

 plain is a wonderfully potent sleeping-draught; 

 and though the wagon bumped terrifically over 

 tree-stumps, bolted down the side of a dried-up 

 ravine, and staggered and trembled as the brow 

 on the other side was gained, I was soon as deep 

 in the arms of Morpheus as I should have been 



