BRITISH EAST AFRICA 213 



lumbering wagon and the hoarse shouts of our 

 Masai wagon-driver. With them, of course, gal- 

 loped a host of " Tommies," their rich rufous 

 brown coats and white tails giving them a 

 particularly handsome appearance in the fresh 

 morning light. 



Clearly I must get ahead of the wagon; the 

 noise of the cumbersome vehicle jolting and 

 bumping along was enough to frighten away game 

 for miles around. Yet in the early morn, buck 

 are less suspicious, and are more easily ap- 

 proached than when the sun is high. So it was 

 that after calling to Burru, my Somali syce, 

 to bring my Abyssinian pony, I rode a little 

 ahead of the wagon and found the plain abso- 

 lutely covered with game. It was a scene such 

 as is to be viewed in exceedingly few parts of 

 the world to-day, and it recalled to my mind 

 the sporting classics of Cornwallis Harris and 

 Gordon Cumming — those men who were fortunate 

 enough to see South Africa in its natural state 

 before the unsightly miles of barbed wire 

 and galvanized iron ousted the springbuck, 

 the wildebeeste and the gemsbok. There was 

 a vast group of hartebeeste families, old bulls, 

 their heads raised in watchful interest, younger 

 bulls close to the patriarchal watchers, cows 

 and fawns behind. There a battalion of zebra 

 faced me and snorted with fear and curiosity. 

 Grant's gazelle in countless troops, " Tommies " 

 well-nigh as plentiful as stunted tussocks of 

 grass — it was indeed a wondrous spectacle. 

 " Wuff ! wuff ! wuff ! " the matutinal grunts 

 of a lion away in the Suswa foothills reminded 

 me that there were sterner members of fauna 

 on the plains than antelope that morning. 

 That sound so clearly vibrated across the pure, 



