THE DUMBERELLI PLAIN 
251 
cutting each other across the knuckles with their knives, 
they threw them away, and, grappling with each other, ft;ll 
backwards into the bushes, where they lay until hauled 
apart. 
Next day, as usual, we started about three hours before 
dawn, and a leopard ' coughed ’ quite close to us in the 
bushes as we silently marched on. I had never heard the 
sound so near before in the jungle ; the animal must have 
been within a few yards of me. 
At dawn we followed very fresh lesser koodoo tracks. 
They led into the densest bit of jungle I had ever been in ; 
the brilliant greens and the sweet scents of this jungle were 
most remarkable. Passing a large ant-hill, upon which we 
saw the marks of his horns, we walked on tip-toe, when 
behind a bush, some four yards ahead of us, we heard the 
alarm bark of the koodoo, and then he crashed through the 
bushes and away. It was far too dense to follow now, so we 
returned to the caravan, which we found pitched close to 
fresh rhinoceros tracks. We followed these for some way, 
but the animal got our wind, and went sailing through the 
bushes like a steam-roller, unseen by us in the dense thicket. 
We emerged from this thick jungle upon the Dumberelli 
Plain, a large open him covered with long green grass and 
tiny bushes. We immediately sighted an enormous herd 
of oryx, which, however, would not allow us to approach 
within a thousand yards. Soon after we saw another huge 
herd of upwards of a hundred, and after creeping, crawling, 
bending and crouching, we were left far behind. We next 
followed some lots of ‘ owl ’ gazelle, the plain literally 
crawling with game. After several attempts to get near 
them I fired in sheer desperation at a fine buck a pro- 
digious way off, and knocked him down with a bullet 
through his heart. He had a very fine head indeed and 
was very fat. Here the Somalis did a grin. We then 
camped in a magnificent sunset, after having been on the 
march twelve hours during the day. 
Early next day it was bitterly cold on the open plain, 
