274 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
It was not till the third morning after leaving its shores, 
that, with delight, we found ourselves once more beside the 
ample bosom of our dear old friend. We were now on the 
large bay of Alia or Lalia. The water here is very shallow for 
a long distance out, and there is much water-grass growing in 
it. We camped early, under some bushy thorn-trees giving 
real shade, a by no means common feature of the trees in this 
country, but particularly grateful in the torrid heat. The 
opportunity of resting in comfort was especially welcome, as I 
had got a touch of fever from the trying ordeal of seeing the 
donkeys watered the day before. Opposite was another fishing 
village on a small island, the natives from which soon brought 
quantities of fish for sale. I sent word that I should like some 
freshly caught, and some of them went out and speared a lot in 
quite a short time. There were some Reshiat people, too, here, 
who had come for the sake of the fish on account of famine in 
their own country. All are excessively black. 
I saw a good deal of game ; and, in addition to the usual 
oryx and grantii, now, for the first time, “ topi.” I shot one of 
the latter in the afternoon, but had to fetch Pice to assist in its 
capture, and it gave us a good chase before it was done, not¬ 
withstanding that I had hit it right in the shoulder, though an 
inch or two low if anything. It seemed wonderful how it could 
live and run after such a shot. This was the first antelope of 
the kind I had ever shot, though I had seen some years before 
in Sotike (a district in the direction of the Victoria Nyanza, but 
south of the ordinary route to that lake). They remind one 
strongly of the bastard hartebeeste (Damaliscus lunatus) of the 
south. I am not sure whether this variety is identical with the 
“ topi ” of the east coast, or whether, as I think very likely, it is 
an intermediate form between that and the “ korrigum ” of the 
west, in the same way that the oryx agrees entirely with 
neither beisa nor callotis. 1 It was here, too, that I noticed 
1 Probably the ‘ ‘ topi,” ‘ ‘ korrigum,” and ‘ 1 tiang ” are all three mere local varieties of 
one species. 
