GIRAFFES 
93 
CH. IV] 
possible lions. Half as far on the other side of the 
rhino a party of naked savages had established their 
camp, if camp it could be called, for really all they did 
was to squat down round a couple of fires with a few 
small bushes disposed round about. The rhino had 
been opened, and they had already taken out of the 
carcass what they regarded as titbits and what we 
certainly did not grudge them. Between the two 
camps lay the huge dead beast, his hide glistening in 
the moonlight. In each camp the men squatted around 
the fires chatting and laughing as they roasted strips of 
meat on long sticks, the fitful blaze playing over them, 
now leaving them in darkness, now bringing them out 
into a red relief. Our own tent was pitched under 
another tree a hundred yards off, and when I went to 
sleep, I could still hear the drumming and chanting of 
our feasting porters; the savages were less at ease, and 
their revel was quiet. 
Early next morning I went back to camp, and soon 
after reaching there again started out for a hunt. In 
the afternoon I came on giraffes and got up near enough 
to shoot at them. But they are such enormous beasts 
that I thought them far nearer than they were. My 
bullet fell short, and they disappeared among the 
mimosas, at their strange leisurely-looking gallop. Of 
all the beasts in an African landscape none is more 
striking than the giraffe. Usually it is found in small 
parties or in herds of fifteen or twenty or more 
individuals. Although it will drink regularly if occa¬ 
sion offers, it is able to get along without water for 
months at a time, and frequents by choice the dry plains 
or else the stretches of open forest where the trees are 
scattered and ordinarily somewhat stunted. Like the 
rhinoceros—the ordinary or prehensile-lipped rhinoceros 
