86 
RHINO AND GIRAFFES [ch. iv 
often lie up in patches of brush, they do not care for 
thick timber. 
After shooting the wart-hog we marched on to our 
camp at Bondoni. The gun-bearers were Mohammedans, 
and the dead pig was of no service to them; and at 
their request I walked out while camp was being pitched 
and shot them a buck; this I had to do now and then, 
but I always shot males, so as not to damage the 
species. 
Next day we marched to the foot of Kilimakiu 
Mountain, near Captain Skitter’s ostrich farm. Our 
route lay across bare plains, thickly covered with 
withered short grass. All around us as we marched 
were the game herds, zebras and hartebeests, gazelles 
of the two kinds, and now and then wildebeests. 
Hither and thither over the plain, crossing and recross¬ 
ing, ran the dusty game trails, each with its myriad 
hoof-marks—the round hoof-prints of the zebra, the 
heart-shaped marks that showed where the hartebeest 
herd had trod, and the delicate etching that betrayed 
where the smaller antelope had passed. Occasionally 
we crossed the trails of the natives, worn deep in the 
hard soil by the countless thousands of bare or sandalled 
feet that had trodden them. Africa is a country of 
trails. Across the high veldt, in every direction, run 
the tangled trails of the multitudes of game that have 
lived thereon from time immemorial. The great beasts 
of the marsh and the forest made therein broad and 
muddy trails which often offer the only pathway by 
which a man can enter the sombre depths. In wet 
ground and dry alike are also found the trails of savage 
man. They lead from village to village, and in places 
they stretch for hundreds of miles, w T here trading parties 
have worn them in the search for ivory, or in the old 
