XXI 
AFR/CAJV ANTELOPES 
183 
only for myself, but for a large number of 
followers. There is no superiority of sport in 
this variety, but I cannot help recalling to re¬ 
membrance a particular occasion when I nearly 
lost a fine male through the want of penetration 
of the bullet. 
The flotilla of fifty - seven vessels was toiling 
along the adverse current of the White Nile, and, 
according to the varying energies of officers and 
crews, the ships occupied positions either in 
advance or rear, straggling throughout a course 
of many miles. 
As my vessel led the way, we moored alongside 
the bank one afternoon, where an extensive flat 
of perhaps a thousand acres stretched from the 
water’s edge to the base of low wooded hills 
which formed a range, increasing in height as 
they stretched into the interior. It was a 
pretty bit of country after the interminable 
swamps of the White Nile, through which we had 
been so long in passing, therefore I landed, with 
my rifle, accompanied by my chief engineer, Mr. 
Higginbotham, and Lieut. Baker, R.N. 
We had walked through the wooded hills for 
a considerable distance without firing a shot, 
although game had several times been moved, 
when, upon descending to the lower ground, en 
route to our vessel, we observed three large 
bull mehedehets feeding in the open plain, 
directly in the path that we were about to take. 
There was very little chance of obtaining a shot 
