430 Great and Small Game of Africa 



mounted hunters, as, although there are exceptional cows that none but a 

 good horse can run down, a very moderate horse can run down an average 

 eland bull or cow. I have found by long experience, 1 that, contrary to the 

 generally received idea, elands run best when they are in good condition 

 before they commence to feed on the young green grass ; although, of 

 course, when the accumulation of fat round the heart of an old bull 

 becomes very great, he would doubtless not be able to gallop far. But I 

 remember that a bull which I killed for meat in December 1883 was so 

 weak that he never broke into a gallop at all, and on cutting him up I 

 found that there was not a particle of fat in his marrow, whilst his 

 flesh was as watery and insipid as that of an ox which had died from the 

 effects of the stings of tsetse flies — which I have also been obliged to eat 

 on more than one occasion. An eland's natural pace when disturbed is a 

 trot — a splendid, long, ground-covering trot, which it requires a horse to 

 go at a hand-gallop to keep up with, but which an eland can maintain 

 apparently without much effort for miles. When a herd of elands starts 

 off running, first one then another of its members will often spring up into 

 the air, leaping as high as the backs of their fellows. When pressed, an 

 eland will first trot faster and faster, and then break into a swinging gallop, 

 which it will be able to maintain without a break for from half a mile to 

 a mile and a half; and so long as an eland is actually galloping, none but an 

 exceptionally good horse will actually pass it, although a fairly good horse 

 will keep close up all the time. At length the eland will break from his 

 gallop, and, with the foam and slaver flowing from his mouth, and flying 

 back over his great neck, now black with sweat, once again commence to 

 trot. He is, however, probably not yet done. As his pursuer presses close 

 up to him he will very likely resume his gallop and keep it up again for a 

 quarter of a mile or so. But that will be his last effort, and now you may 

 gallop past him, and shoot him through the heart as he trots past you or 



1 Since 1 published my first book in 1881. 



