302 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
beds of green rushes and a fringe of trees and thorn thickets. 
This was evidently a favorite, drinking-place. Many trails 
converged toward it, and for a long distance round the 
ground was worn completely bare by the hoofs of the count¬ 
less herds of thirsty game that had travelled thither from 
time immemorial. Sleek, handsome, long-horned oryx, with 
switching tails, were loitering in the vicinity, and at the 
water hole itself we surprised a band of gazelles not fifty 
yards off; they fled panic-struck in every direction. Men 
and horses drank their fill; and we returned to the sunny 
plains and the endless reaches of withered, rustling grass. 
At last, an hour or two before sunset, when the heat had 
begun a little to abate, we spied half a dozen giraffes scattered 
a mile and a half ahead of us, feeding on the tops of the 
few widely separated thorn-trees. Cuninghame and I 
started toward them on foot, but they saw us when we 
were a mile away, and after gazing a short while, turned 
and went off at their usual rocking-horse canter, twisting 
and screwing their tails. We mounted and rode after 
them. I was on my zebra-shaped brown horse, which was 
hardy and with a fair turn of speed, and which by this time 
I had trained to be a good hunting horse. On the right 
were two giraffe which eventually turned out to be a big 
cow followed by a nearly full-grown young one; but Cun¬ 
inghame, scanning them through his glasses, and misled by 
the dark coloration, pronounced them a bull and cow; 
and after the big one I went. By good luck we were on 
one of the rare pieces of the country which was fitted for 
galloping. I rode at an angle to the giraffe's line of flight, 
thus gaining considerably; and when it finally turned and 
went straight away I followed it at a fast run, and before it 
