ON SAFARI. RHINO AND GIRAFFE 
97 
at a man who incautiously comes within reach, they are in 
no way dangerous. 
The following day I again rode out with Captain Blat¬ 
ter. During the morning we saw nothing except the ordi¬ 
nary game, and we lunched on a hill-top, ten miles distant 
from camp, under a huge fig-tree with spreading branches 
and thick, deep green foliage. Throughout the time we 
were taking lunch a herd of zebras watched us from near 
by, standing motionless with their ears pricked forward, 
their beautifully striped bodies showing finely in the sun¬ 
light. We scanned the country round about with our 
glasses, and made out first a herd of elands, a mile in 
our rear, and then three giraffes a mile and a half in our 
front. I wanted a bull eland, but I wanted a giraffe still 
more, and we mounted our horses and rode toward where 
the three tall beasts stood, on an open hillside with trees 
thinly scattered over it. Half a mile from them we left the 
horses in a thick belt of timber beside a dry watercourse, 
and went forward on foot. 
There was no use in trying a stalk, for that would 
merely have aroused the giraffe’s suspicion. But we knew 
they were accustomed to the passing and repassing of 
Wakamba men and women, whom they did not fear if they 
kept at a reasonable distance, so we walked in single file 
diagonally in their direction; that is, toward a tree which 
I judged to be about three hundred yards from them. I 
was carrying the Winchester loaded with full metal-patched 
bullets. I wished to get for the museum both a bull and a 
cow. One of the three giraffes was much larger than the 
other two, and as he was evidently a bull I thought the two 
others were cows. 
