XIV 
RETURN TO LAKE RUDOLPH 
337 
their powers of marksmanship. Consequently, during my long 
illness, the supply for my primitive lamp had run short. Now 
the topi were always fat, and Feruzi, after a few experiments, 
acquired the art of making their hard suet into candles, using a 
large, hollow reed, split lengthwise, as a mould. Beeswax, 
where obtainable, is also suitable ; but it is not easy to get, 
even in honey districts, as the natives always swallow it. 
I obtained several fine heads about this time ; and although 
I never allowed myself (nor would it be any pleasure to me) to 
shoot anything which was 
not wanted, the exercise 
and diversion of keeping 
up the supply of meat 
occasionally, and at the 
same time procuring 
trophies, was a welcome 
change to the monotony 
of my life here during the 
slow process of recovery, 
and I could not have been 
camped in a better situa¬ 
tion for the purpose. It 
... . . r A Native Game-Snare. 
was during the period of 
convalescence, too, that I was so fortunate as to secure speci¬ 
mens of my new hartebeeste. I had hopes of getting a young 
topi alive, to bring to the coast, as the El Gume snare a 
good many with nooses ; but, though I offered any price for 
one, they never could make up their minds to forgo the feast 
whenever a victim was caught. The snare is made of twisted 
strips of hide, laid up exactly like the “ neck-strop ” used to 
yoke bullocks in South Africa, with a running noose at each 
end. A contrivance like a little wheel without .a nave, with 
an inordinate number of spokes (sharpened at the end point¬ 
ing to the centre), is laid over a circular hole dug in a path 
or crossing much frequented by game, and on the outer edge 
z 
