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“Much of the Haud is bush-covered wilderness or open semi-desert, but 
some of the higher plains are, at the proper season, in early summer, covered, 
far as the eye can reach, with a beautiful carpet of green grass, like English 
pasture-land. At this time of the year pools of water may be found, as the 
rainfall is abundant. 
‘This kind of open grass country is called the ‘Ban.’ Not a bush is to be 
seen, and some of these plains are thirty or forty miles each way. 
“There is not always much game to be got at in the Haud; but a year 
ago, coming on to ground which had not yet been visited by Europeans, I 
found one of these plains covered with herds of Hartebeests, there being 
perhaps a dozen herds in sight at one time, each containing three or four 
hundred individuals. Hundreds of bulls were scattered singly on the out- 
skirts and in spaces between the herds, grazing, fighting, or lying down. 
*“The scene I describe was at a distance of over a hundred miles from 
Berbera; and the game has probably been driven far beyond that point 
by now. = 
“The Hartebeest bulls are very pugnacious, and two or three couples may 
be fighting round the same herd at one time. Often one of the bulls will be 
sent rolling head over heels. 
«The easiest way to get a specimen is to send a couple of Midgans round 
above the wind to drive the Hartebeest towards you, at the same time lying 
down in the grass. A shot may be got within fifty yards, but no one would 
care to shoot many Hartebeests, as the trophy is poor. 
“Often Oryxes and Scemmerring’s Gazelles are seen in company with these 
great troops of Hartebeests, but the Oryxes are much wilder. ‘The Harte- 
beests are rather tame, and they and the Scemmerring’s Gazelles are always 
the last to move away. 
“ Hartebeests have great curiosity, and rush round a caravan, halting now 
and then within two hundred yards to gaze. ‘This sight is an extraordinary 
one, these Antelopes having heavy and powerful forequarters, head, and chest, 
of a different shade of chestnut to the hindquarters, which are poor and fall 
away. In the midday haze on the plains they look like troops of Lions. 
“The pace of the Hartebeest is an ungraceful lumbering canter; but this 
species is really the fleetest and most enduring of the Somali Antelopes. The 
largest herd I have ever seen must have contained a thousand individuals, 
packed closely together, and looking like a regiment of cavalry, the whole 
