448 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
buffalo, giraffe, and elephant; and on our way back to 
camp in the evenings we now and then killed a roan, harte- 
beest, or oribi. But the game we sought was the giant 
eland, and we never fired when there was the slightest 
chance of disturbing our quarry. They usually went in 
herds, but there were solitary bulls. We found that they 
drank at some pool in the Koda before dawn and then 
travelled many miles back into the parched interior, feed¬ 
ing as they went; and, after lying up for some hours about 
mid-day, again moved slowly off, feeding. They did not 
graze, but fed on the green leaves, and the bean pods of the 
tree of which I have already spoken and of another tree. 
One of their marked habits—shared in some degree by 
their forest cousin, the bongo—^was breaking the higher 
branches with their horns, to get at the leaves; they thus 
broke branches two or three inches in diameter and seven 
or eight feet from the ground, the crash of the branches 
being a sound for which we continually listened as we 
followed the tracks of a herd. They were far more wary 
than roan, or hartebeest, or any of the other buck, and the 
country was such that it was difficult to see more than a 
couple of hundred yards ahead. 
It took me three hard days’ work before I got my eland. 
Each day I left camp before sunrise and on the first two I 
came back after dark, while it always happened that at 
noon we were on a trail and could not stop. We would 
walk until we found tracks made that morning, and then 
the gun-bearers and the native guide would slowly follow 
them, hour after hour, under the burning sun. On the 
first day we saw nothing; on the next we got a moment’s 
glimpse of an eland, trotting at the usual slashing gait; 
