GAME ON. THE S AYE AH BUN 
27 
seeing the spoor of some lions, feared that they must be after 
their domestic animals. After breakfast I ascended a small 
rise in the ground, and what a sight met my .eyes — a sight 
to make any sportsman’s heart beat ! Below me stretched 
a vast open plain for a distance of about twelve miles, 
covered with grass about a foot high, and thinly scattered 
every 100 yards or so with little thorn-bushes 2 or 3 feet 
high. 
This immense area was literally crawling with game. 
Here, close below us, was a herd of from seventy to eighty 
^ owl ^ gazelles. Further on slowly walked in Indian file six 
hartebeest (Swayne’s), looking like huge donkeys high in 
the withers. Further still, among some higher bushes, 
were to be seen five or six gerenook, females with a single 
male, every now and then standing upon their hind-legs to 
crop the tender shoots growing on the tops of the bushes. 
Beyond these, again, I could discern a herd of oryx quietly 
feeding. 
But look I what are those dark objects which look so 
much taller than anything else ? With the aid of my 
binoculars I make them out to be three ostriches. Behind 
them rises a great sea of fog, resembling , a huge lake, in 
which one often sees a mirage. I waited no longer, but, 
running down the bank, set foot for the first time upon the 
open plain. We tried the ostriches first, and after walking 
over a mile or two of grass with huge herds of ‘ owl ’ on 
right and left, which gazed with curious eyes as we passed 
by, we^ neared the huge birds. . But before we had 
approached within a quarter of^ a mile of them, the 
ostriches, after lifting their long necks and staring at us 
for a minute, let us know that their name was ‘ Walker.’ 
I had brought my pony out with me, hoping to come across 
lions, which often stray out of the thick cover into the open 
after oryx, and when gorged are to be found lying in the 
grass, too lazy to return to the bush. They can then be 
ridden down and’ brought to bay. Not wishing to tire my 
pony out so early’ in the day, I did not give chase, and 
