404 Great and Small Game of Africa 



wounded and left standing, thinking she was done for, whilst I galloped on 

 after the bull ; but when I returned to look for her she was gone, and 

 though I followed her tracks for some distance, I never saw her again. 

 Old sable antelope bulls, after they have been driven away from the females 

 by younger males, nearly always live entirely alone, though I once saw 

 four old bulls together, a most unusual sight. The horns of these old 

 bulls are often very much worn down at the points. The male sable 

 antelope stands as a rule about 4 feet 6 inches at the withers and is very 

 solidly built, deep in the shoulder and powerful in the neck. The flesh of 

 this species is, in my opinion, very inferior to that of the roan antelope ; in 

 fact, c ceteris paribus, I prefer the meat of almost any other antelope running 

 between the Limpopo and the Zambesi to that of the sable antelope. But 

 this of course is a matter of taste, and luckily tastes differ. 



F. C. Selous. 



In British East Africa 



Swahili Name, Pala-hala 



The sable antelope has a very limited range in British East Africa, 

 and is only found in the coast region between the river Voi and the Anglo- 

 German boundary and for a distance of about 70 miles inland. It appears, 

 however, to be fairly plentiful in the open and sparsely-timbered country 

 to the west of the Shimba and Rabai hills, particularly in the vicinity of 

 Adda. Here several have been killed within the last eight years, notably 

 by Mr. Jenner, now H.M.'s Sub-Commissioner for the Jubaland Province ; 

 by Captain Tighe of the 27th Bombay Infantry, and by some of the officials 

 of the Uganda Railway. In 1888 they were also fairly plentiful near Galu 

 Galu, about 20 miles north-east of Rabia, but were so wild, from being 

 constantly hunted by a small mixed colony of Wakamba and Giviarua 

 people, that they were quite unapproachable, in spite of the country being 



