ON AN EAST AFRICAN RANCH 
53 
again. In the same way the habits of the game as to mi¬ 
gration vary with the different districts, in Africa as in 
America. There are places where all the game, perhaps 
notably the wildebeests, gather in herds of thousands, at 
certain times, and travel for scores of miles, so that a dis¬ 
trict which is teeming with game at one time may be almost 
barren of large wild life at another. But my information 
was that around the Kapiti Plains there was no such com¬ 
plete and extensive shift. If the rains are abundant and 
the grass rank, most of the game will be found far out in 
the middle of the plains; if, as was the case at the time 
of my visit, there has been a long drought—the game will 
be found ten or fifteen miles away, near or among the foot¬ 
hills. 
Unless there was something special on, like a lion- or 
rhinoceros-hunt, I usually rode off followed only by my 
sais and gun-bearers. I cannot describe the beauty and 
the unceasing interest of these rides, through the teeming 
herds of game. It was like retracing the steps of time for 
sixty or seventy years, and being back in the days of Corn¬ 
wallis Harris and Gordon Cumming, in the palmy times 
of the giant fauna of South Africa. On Pease’s own farm 
one day I passed through scores of herds of the beautiful 
and wonderful wild creatures I have spoken of above; all 
told there were several thousands of them. With the ex¬ 
ception of the wildebeest, most of them were not shy, and I 
could have taken scores of shots at a distance of a couple of 
hundred yards or thereabout. Of course, I did not shoot 
at anything unless we were out of meat or needed the skin 
for the collection; and when we took the skin we almost 
always took the meat too, for the porters, although they 
