26 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
the parched desolation of the landscape bore witness; nev¬ 
ertheless there were two or three showers that afternoon. 
We soon began to see game, but the flatness of the country 
and the absence of all cover made stalking a matter of diffi¬ 
culty; the only bushes were a few sparsely scattered mimo¬ 
sas; stunted things, two or three feet high, scantily leaved, 
but abounding in bulbous swellings on the twigs, and in 
long, sharp spikes of thorns. There were herds of harte- 
beest and wildebeest, and smaller parties of beautiful ga¬ 
zelles. The last were of two kinds, named severally after 
their discoverers, the explorers Grant and Thomson; many 
of the creatures of this region commemorate the men— 
Schilling, Jackson, Neuman, Kirke, Chanler, Abbot— 
who first saw and hunted them and brought them to the 
notice of the scientific world. The Thomson’s gazelles, or 
Tommies as they are always locally called, are pretty, alert 
little things, half the size of our prongbuck; their big 
brothers, the Grant’s, are among the most beautiful of 
all antelopes, being rather larger than a whitetail deer, 
with singularly graceful carriage, while the old bucks carry 
long lyre-shaped horns. 
Distances are deceptive on the bare plains under the 
African sunlight. I saw a fine Grant, and stalked him in 
a rain squall; but the bullets from the little Springfield 
fell short as he raced away to safety; I had underestimated 
the range. Then I shot, for the table, a good buck of the 
smaller gazelle, at two hundred and twenty-five yards; the 
bullet went a little high, breaking his back above the 
shoulders. 
But what I really wanted were two good specimens, bull 
and cow, of the wildebeest. These powerful, ungainly 
