NOTES ON SOMALILAND, 289 
lamentations of the cook, who, simple being, used to state his morning wants 
as regards meat as if it only had to be ordered from the bazaar round the 
corner. In spite of my good intentions, however, I had eventually to give up 
the chase. The buck stopped every half-mile or so, and seemed to be simply 
fooling me, As soon as I had tracked up to within 200 yards of him, I was 
informed of his proximity by a clatter of hoofs ahead of the thickest bush in 
front of me: the same thing was repeated time after time, but I could never 
get a view of him, and eventually had to give up the pursuit as a bad job, 
My experience is that they are much easier approached collectively than 
singly, and that if you want to make sure of a good head or two, you must 
hunt them on the Marar Prairie, or other open expanse of country, where 
you can see them in large herds, and pick your animals—a much easier matter 
with the Mannlichers and Lee-Metfords of to-day than it was with the 
-“ Expresses’’ of old, 
SWAYNE’S HARTEBEEST. 
(Bubalus swaynei). 
These ungainly antelope are still plentiful in one or two places, but are 
very locally distributed, In the dry season, before the rains, which begin 
in April or May, all the hartebeest in the country seem to migrate westwards 
towards the Harrar highlands, where the grass has still some life and nourish- 
men left in it, At this time unless you havea “permit” for shooting in 
Abyssinian territory, it is useless looking for them ; but directly rain has 
fallen, and from then until the grass once more loses its moisture, they may 
be found in great numbers allover the belt of open prairie stretching east- 
wards from Jifu to Toyo. There are none in the Reserve, and I do not 
know of any other ground within the present boundaries of the Protector- 
ate, which they frequent, except the above, while at no great distance 
further south the Somali form (B. swaynei) is replaced by Coke’s Hartebeest, 
so that the distribution of the former is very limited. 
While scouring the Marar Prairie, on the present occasion, in the hope of 
picking up a stray specimen of B. swaynei, I had acuriously interesting morn- 
ing, falling in with some old acquaintances out on the open “ban” in the 
most unexpected manner possible. I had left the head-quarters of the ex- 
pedition for a fortnight on the lightest “ field-service scale,’ with the object 
of obtaining a Hartebeest, It was very dry at the time, and water being 20 
miles or more away I was encamped near a zareeba of herd-camels, in order 
to get the benefit of their milk. I could not remain on the “ban” or grass 
belt, itself, as it was about 10 miles further still from water, and it would 
have been too great a strain for my already hard-worked baggage-camels, to 
be going frequently such a long tramp to the wellsand back. To compensate 
for this I had’ to be up very early in the mornings and to trot down to the 
plain on my riding-camel, before the work of the day began. On the morn- 
ing in question I had been tramping the mirage-girt plain for two or three 
