98 
ON SAFARI 
witli my record impala. 1 Still, the incident possessed 
a moral which may be worth relating. I had “jumped” 
this animal in open forest, and crippled him so severely 
with a straightaway stern-shot that I walked up within 
twenty yards of where he stood disabled, with head 
down and hind-legs straddled apart. My gun-bearer 
kept urging, “ Shoot, shoot,” but I thought it unneces¬ 
sary, till the buck staggered a few yards into some 
thicker scrub, when I fired carelessly with the single 
carbine and missed. Even then the sick beast stood 
gazing towards us within thirty yards. I covered his 
shoulder with the double *303, but that rifle was on 
“ safety ” (note, that the carbine has no safety), and 
before I could remedy that bungle, the impala, with a 
loud cough, disappeared over a ridge. I never saw him 
again, though I stuck to his spoor all that day and the 
next, and kept men watching the vultures till we left 
that camp. Such is the vitality of African antelopes. 
The moral is, never spare a cartridge while game remains 
on its legs. While busy puzzling out spoor that night, 
hearing the same “cough,” or sneeze, I approached the 
spot and got another impala with fine, strong head, but 
he appeared a bagatelle by comparison. I have seen 
hundreds of impala, both in South and East Africa, but 
never a head like the one my folly threw away that day. 
We had now secured one out of the two main objects 
of our trip to Baringo—a pair of oryx apiece. But in the 
other we had been disappointed. Not a single eland 
had I personally seen, for certain, in all the beautiful 
park-like plains of Baringo, where, only a few weeks 
before, these magnificent antelopes had abounded. This 
we knew from Mr. Archer, at Baringo Fort, and his 
assurance was amply corroborated by old spoor. But 
1 From experience, I deduce this result—that the apparent 
magnitude of a head seen in the field is disproportionately affected 
by the span of horns as distinguished from their length. Thus, for 
example, of two impala, each, say, 25 ins., the one with broad head 
of 20 ins. span will appear double the size of the other which only 
spans 12 ins. or less. 
