704 MR. G. H. GURNEY ON NATURAL HISTORY 
licence only allows one bull to be shot by each person and 
I was lucky enough to get a good one, after a long and rather 
exciting stalk ; I was returning to camp one morning when 
news was brought that there was an Eland standing near 
some rocks a mile away ; sure enough I soon “ spied ” him 
standing in the shade of a small single boulder right out on 
the plain ; it was impossible to shoot him from where we were 
as the boulder was directly between him and me and hid all 
but his head and the end of his back, so we lay down flat, 
and crawled round to get a clear shot the other side ; when 
we got there we found he too had changed his position, and 
moved further round and that the stone was still between us. 
I daren’t move any more for fear he should see me as there 
was no cover at all, so the only thing to do was to wait, and 
trust he’d soon shift again ; but not a bit of it, he stood there, 
lazily twitching his ears and tossing his tail, while we lay on 
our stomachs, the hot sun pouring on to our backs, for nearly 
an hour, at last when I was nearly on the point of giving it 
up he gave a kind of snort, and slowly walked from behind the 
stone giving me a splendid shot at 300 yards. I fired and 
smashed his shoulder and another shot finished him ; he 
was a splendid old bull, seventeen hands high I should think, 
with a beautiful head and there was much rejoicing in camp 
that night over so much meat, the boys sitting round the fire 
laughing and singing until I was obliged to get out of my tent 
and tell them not to make so much noise. 
After spending two days near Dony-o-sambouk, where my 
friend shot a pretty little Antelope called “ Chandler’s Reed 
Buck,” which is not very common, we marched down to the 
Athi River which joins the Thika River ; here the whole aspect 
of the country was different, undulating hills covered with bush 
and many different species of shrubs and trees took the place 
of the bare plains we had previously been crossing, while 
directly one gets into the vicinity of water, the vegetation 
becomes at once luxurious ; the scenery at this camp was 
beautiful, either side of the river was a broad belt of thick bush 
with many splendid trees and flowering shrubs, palms of two 
or three species, and a kind of large Tree-fern interlaced with 
