126 
ON SAFARI 
Thomson’s gazelle, choosing the best heads I could see 
among hundreds. None of the horns, however, exceeded 
13^- ins. in length. These are exquisitely graceful 
little antelopes, scarcely so large as a roe-deer; it was a 
lovely spectacle to watch them playfully coursing each 
other in sheer exuberance of spirits, the pursued dodging 
and doubling with the speed and resource of a hare 
before greyhounds. They are confiding little beasties, 
and can often be approached, by circling around them, 
within a range of 100 to 120 yards ; but even then 
present but a small mark for a rifle, since, diminutive 
as they are, they possess the same tenacity of life 
that characterises their larger congeners, and, unless 
struck Avell forward, will carry on for miles though 
practically disembowelled. Their irides are very dark 
hazel, and bucks that we weighed scaled from 48 
to 57 lbs. 
On approaching the north-west end of the lake, we 
found that between the higher plateau we had been tra¬ 
versing and the actual shores was interposed a lower-lying 
plain a mile or two in width. The dividing escarpment 
at this point was abrupt, dropping to the plain below in 
rugged crags of a couple of hundred feet; and spying 
from the ridge, we saw many troops of zebra and 
gazelles, with a few impala dotted about. A single 
antelope, however, at once arrested attention; though 
generally similar to the granti buck amidst which it 
was, this animal stood higher on its legs, was longer in 
neck, and moreover displayed the black lateral band 
characteristic of G. thomsoni , but not of granti. A 
near approach, in full face, was impossible ; but a shot 
at 200 yards, though it struck too far back, appeared 
completely to have disabled the stranger. Then it 
recovered and went off across the far-stretched plain 
further than I could follow with binoculars—further, 
indeed, than I ever remember to have seen a hard-struck 
beast go without stopping. Elmi, all along, had asserted 
that this was an “Aoul” (Gazella scemmeringi, the 
common species of Somaliland), and being a Somali, and 
