102 
leopard and cheetah may be found, if 
you are lucky enough, in any likely bit 
of bush and sometimes in very unlikely 
places indeed. The elephant lives in 
the bamboo forests high up on the slopes 
of the Aberdares, migrating at times 
across the plains to the forest on the 
lower le\els. I ha\-e only mentioned a 
few of the antelope that exist and I 
have said nothing of the pig nor of the 
various lesser cats, but I hope 1 have 
said enough to show that there is ample 
game to satisfy the most exacting taste. 
But do not imagine from the existance 
of so varied and numerous a fauna that 
East African game is at all easy to hunt 
and kill. Animals o\cr there are no 
fonder of human beings than anywhere 
else and some of them are apt to be 
rather irritable if close acquaintance is 
* sought. Their successful pursuit implies 
as much skill in woodcraft as in other 
countries and calls for considerable en- 
durance in high temperatures. Neither 
frequent mirage on the plains, nor the 
high altitude, conduce to steady shooting 
and until one gets used to the country, 
it is very difficult to judge distances. 
Travelling in the district 1 am describ- 
ing is done either by a caravan of native 
porters, who carry your goods and food 
on their heads, or by ox-wagon on routes 
where there is sufficient water and the 
bush is not too thick to force a way 
through. Sometimes a combination of 
the two methods is employed with the 
idea of using the wagon as a base camp 
when on the edge of imi)assable coun- 
try, with the porters available for the 
establishment of subsidiary camps in 
places where the ox-wagon cannot pene- 
trate. I was accompanied by two white 
friends on this oc- 
casion and, employ- 
ing the last-named 
method, we found 
that cutting things 
down to their finest 
point, we needed an 
ox-wagon, sixteen 
oxen and about for- 
ty natives to trans- 
port our belongings 
and look after our 
needs for the space 
of two months. This 
probably sounds as 
if we were doing 
things on an ultra- 
luxurious scale, but 
climatic conditions 
do not permit the 
simpler and prefer- 
able methods of this 
country. The white 
man in East Africa 
needs considerably 
more comfort than in temperate cli- 
mates to enable him to retain his health. 
There is the equatorial sun to be 
guarded against, sudden chills which if 
neglected lead to dysentery, and the 
ever-present malaria. These matters re- 
quire constant vigilance if one wants to 
keep fit. Our own personal belongings 
went into one or two tin boxes apiece ; 
the rest of the impedimenta consisted of 
the heavy tents, porter’s “posho” or 
meal, tinned provisions, salt for curing 
skins, and two or three guns apiece. 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Perhaps it docs not appear enough to 
account for the forty men but of these 
latter eliminate the personal “boys,” 
gun-bearers, the cook, skinner and one 
or two other dignitaries who will not 
carry loads, and then reckon that the 
rest of them carry not more than 60 lbs. 
The rhino down for good 
each, and that what they do carry repre- 
sents all the absolute necessities for 
keeping you in the field for two months 
and you will come to the conclusion, as 
we did, that our outfit was a modest 
one. The wealthy stranger in East 
Africa does things on a much more 
gorgeous scale, with a professional 
white hunter in attendance and enough 
porters to make the expedition look like 
the emigration of the Israelites. 
COR the first two or three days after 
^ leaving the settled areas, we saw no 
game on the line of march. After that, 
never a day passed without seeing herds 
of Kurchell’s zebra on the plains, to- 
gether with the handsome little Thorn- 
March, 192;- 
son’s gazelle. A stroll in the earl; 
morning or late afternoon on the edg( 
of the nearest covert almost invariabb 
rewarded us with a shot at duiker 
water-buck, dik-dik or recdbuck, or i 
we took a shot-gun, maybe some of th( 
feathered game would find its way t( 
the pot. Though we bagged partridg( 
of various species, spur-fowl, and ii 
places, duck and geese, I grieve to sa} 
that none of us ever suebeeded in shoot 
ing a guinea fowl, of which there was 
no lack. We should have taken along 
a .22 or other miniature rifle for these 
gentry, whose inconsiderate habit it i; 
to run nimbly through the scrub unti! 
well out of range of a shot-gun anc 
then take to their wings with a triumph- 
ant cackle. 
The great charm of a stroll in the 
African bush is that one never knows 
what one will run across and one goes 
prepared accordingly. A day’s bag con- 
sequently will be sometimes very mixed, 
often amusingly so. One memorable 
day produced a steinbuck, two rhino and 
a dik-dik, the last-named a miniature 
antelope the size of a hare. In addition, 
had we been so minded, we could have 
shot giraffe. We took more pleasure 
in watching for some little time a herd 
of these interesting but quite unsporting 
animals. As a rule, my companions and 
I hunted independently but that day we 
had elected to go out together and it 
was while waiting the issue of a futile 
attempt on the part of our men to drive 
a herd of otherwise unapproachable 
eland that we became aware of fourteen 
giraffe feeding towards us from our 
.rear. J hey were finally within rather 
less than 150 yards when they took the 
alarm and for half 
an hour we had 
ample' opportunity 
of watching these; 
curious creatures 
through the glasses 
I do not know the 
measurements of a 
full-grown giraffe: 
but the biggest one' 
of the herd must 
have stood between 
seven and eight feet 
at the shoulder, and 
when reaching up to 
crop the branch of 
a tree, the enormous 
neck appeared to 
roughly double that 
height. I 
The men’s efforts 
resulting only in 
driving the eland 
the wrong way, we 
went on slowly to- : 
wards a group of rock hillocks. While 
cautiously skirting the base of one of 
these, my gun-bearers’ keen eyes spotted 
three steinbuck on a patch of grass 
above us. A careful stalk brought me 
within 75 yards of them, a buck lying 
down and two rather watchful does 
feeding near him. There was enough 
of the buck visible to take the shot with- 
out whistling him to his feet and I 
broke up the pretty group with an 8 
m/m. bullet through the buck’s neck. He : 
carried a good head and as it happened 
A fine collection of heads and horns 
