460 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
Kermit went on to try for a doe, but had bad luck, 
twice killing a spike buck by mistake, and did not get 
back to the boat until long after dark. 
The following day we were in the mouth of the Bahr 
el Ghazal. It ran sluggishly through immense marshes, 
which stretched back from the river for miles on either 
hand, broken here and there by flats of slightly higher 
land with thorn-trees. The whale-billed storks were fairly 
common, and were very conspicuous as they stood on the 
quaking surface of the marsh, supported by their long¬ 
toed feet. After several fruitless stalks and much follow¬ 
ing through the thick marsh grass, sometimes up to our 
necks in water, I killed one with the Springfield at a dis¬ 
tance of one hundred and thirty yards, and Kermit, after 
missing one standing, cut it down as it rose with his Win¬ 
chester 30-40. These whalebills had in their gizzards 
not only small fish but quite a number of the green blades 
of the marsh grass. The Arabs call them the ‘'Father of 
the Shoe,” and Europeans call them shoebills as well as 
whalebills. The Bahr el Ghazal was alive with water-fowl, 
saddle-bill storks, sacred and purple ibis, many kinds of 
herons, cormorants, plover, and pretty tree ducks which 
twittered instead of quacking. There were sweet-scented 
lotus water-lilies in the ponds. A party of waterbuck cows 
and calves let the steamer pass within fifty yards without 
running. 
We went back to Lake No, where we met another 
steamer, with aboard it M. Solve, a Belgian sportsman, a 
very successful hunter, whom we had already met at Lado; 
with him were his wife, his sister, and his brother-in-law, 
both of the last being as ardent in the chase, especially of 
