500 THROUGH SOMALILAND AND ABYSSINIA chap. 
always tlie best condition of any locality for attracting game, 
particularly when the country is uninhabited. 
I went out on the day of our arrival at Enleh and shot a zebra 
with my Lee-Metford rifle, the ammunition for the larger rifles 
having dwindled to a few cartridges. At dusk I went after a 
very large herd of beisa, but, losing them by the faint moonlight 
a little later, I opened fire on several Scemmerring’s gazelles, and 
bagged two with as many shots from the Lee-Metford. This I 
found an excellent rifle, using a pin’s head for a foresight, the 
pin being wedged into the slit which was in the old pattern 
military weapon. We cut up the zebra and gazelles for the 
twenty-five men whom I had in camp, and the meat was soon 
disposed of. 
On the 28th of April I got a Waller’s gazelle with the Lee- 
Metford, and in the evening I crossed a wide valley to the south 
of camp and fell in with beisa. We found them, a bull and a cow, 
in good stalking cover on the farther side of the valley, near 
some deserted zerfbas, with open thorn-jungle and tempting 
young grass. On first sighting them, two hundred and fifty 
yards away to the east of us, grazing southwards, the wind 
blowing from south to north, I lay down with Geli and Hassan 
behind a thicket of high durr grass and waited. The bull 
walked towards me, and then grazed for about ten minutes 
behind some bushes, the cow standing looking suspiciously in my 
direction. We continued lying down, and only looked up at 
long intervals, each with a bunch of grass held before the face. 
At last the bull appeared from behind the bushes ; and sitting 
up, resting my elbows on my knees, I hit him with the Lee- 
Metford, and he made off* at a gallop and hid in a deserted 
zeriba. Following on his tracks, I was within a yard of the 
zerlba before I saw the tips of his horns appearing over the 
brushwood, only six feet away. From the position of the horns 
I knew he was listening, and placing the muzzle of the rifle into 
the brushwood where his chest should be, I fired and sprang to 
one side, and he rushed away in the other direction at a gallop. 
I ran round the zeriba just in time to see him disappear in thick 
cover. Following, I took a quick shot at him as he crossed a 
glade one hundred and fifty yards away, and missed ; and after 
another chase I ran on to him in thick cover, standing broadside 
on at fifteen yards, when I gave him a shot with a Winchester 
•500 Express. He walked off ten yards and stood again broad- 
side on, looking at us ; and then dropped suddenly, stone dead. 
