BRITISH EAST AFRICA 223 



missed a good wildebeeste bull very badly. 

 Some of the wildebeeste pranced madly forward 

 and were soon raising a cloud of dust as they 

 headed towards the river. But other members 

 of the herd — there were about forty of them 

 altogether — stood their ground, and with snorts 

 of fear and curiosity raised their shaggy heads and 

 gazed in my direction. 



One animal appeared to stand out prominently 

 among the others. It may have been that he 

 was closer, it may have been that he was the 

 finest member of the congregation, but I made 

 up my mind in a moment that this was an animal 

 worth trying for. Creeping behind one of the 

 withered bushes, I got a steady sight on his 

 shoulders just about a hundred and thirty yards 

 away. As soon as one pulls the trigger one 

 knows, after much hunting and shooting, whether 

 the murderous little missile has got home or not. 

 Instinctively I felt I had recorded a hit almost 

 before the bullet had left the rifle barrel, and I 

 was far less surprised than pleased when I saw 

 the gnu lying on the ground, his legs giving 

 a few convulsive kicks. 



Elmi dashed up to him in high glee, and the 

 porters, as usual, beamed at the prospect of 

 more " nyama " — the amount of meat an African 

 can stow away under his black hide has always 

 been a source of unalloyed amazement to me. 

 He was a good bull with a remarkable breadth 

 of horn around the base. He lay there on the 

 weary flatness of the Loita Plain, quite still 

 and silent ; and the sun, now high in the heavens, 

 poured down on his carcase, while the blood 

 bubbled slowly out of the hole that went deep 

 into his heart, and ended in a mangled mass 

 of blood and lead and nickel. 



15 



