166 
ON SAFARI 
biggest beast within a short league of each other! 
We also observed ostrich-poults, half-grown. 
Another day, however, was memorable for shattering 
to atoms any complacent sentiment of self-assurance that 
success only follows on deserts, or that achievements are 
always proportioned to skill, perseverance, or other 
personal qualities. Those who exclude the element of 
chance from their creed may be interested in some notes 
from that day's experience. So far as the writer can 
remember, they stand unique in over forty years 
of shooting-life. 
It was a dull misty dawn, with a wet haze hanging 
over the marshes, whence resounded the sonorous cries 
of the great Kavirondo cranes, while all around our camp 
the bush was alive with the matutinal chorus of doves and 
francolins and the cackle of guinea-fowl in the thorny- 
scrub above. Telling my brother I intended to shoot an 
eland, I set out with my gun-bearers in the half-light. 
We ascended the hill behind our camp, and were walking 
in single file towards the west when I espied close ahead 
a waterbuck bull ( defasset ) feeding in an open glade 
surrounded by bush. Strangely, with three pairs of 
keen eyes on the look-out, none had detected him in 
time ; for before the rifle could be handed, the big buck, 
though unalarmed, had moved forward out of sight, still 
feeding. Eventually the shot was one of those, in bush, 
at “ horns only,” with a conjectural body beneath that 
may be standing in any conceivable relation thereto ; 
the distance also was much greater, and the result a miss. 
The direction of the spoor coinciding with our intended 
route, we followed on ; but presently coming on the crest 
of a sudden escarpment, sighted four hartebeest on the 
plain far below. After a detour, I got a steady lying shot, 
and the best of the four (300 yards away and 200 feet 
below) dropped and lay motionless. It cost us lialf-an- 
liour finding a way down those crags, and then . . . that 
bull was gone! Neither spoor nor blood served us on 
such ground—half rock, half bush; and we saw him no 
more. Holding our course, we shortly viewed what we 
