A BULL TOPI 
155 
CH. VIl] 
very spry and active, and looking like picket pins when 
they stood up on end to survey us. I killed a nine-foot 
python which had swallowed a rabbit. Game was not 
plentiful, but we killed enough for the table. I shot a 
wildebeest bull one day, having edged up to it on foot, 
after missing it standing ; I broke it down with a bullet 
through the hips as it galloped across my front at three 
hundred yards. Kermit killed our first topi, a bull—a 
beautiful animal, the size of a hartebeest, its glossy coat 
with a satin sheen, varying from brown to silver and 
purple. 
By the Guaso Nyero we halted for several days, and 
we arranged to leave Mearns and Loring in a permanent 
camp, so that they might seriously study and collect the 
birds and small mammals while the rest of us pushed 
wherever we wished after the big game. The tents 
were pitched, and the ox-waggons drawn up on the 
southern side of the muddy river, by the edge of a wide 
plain, on which we could see the game grazing as we 
walked around camp. The alluvial flats bordering the 
river and some of the higher plains were covered with 
an open forest growth, the most common tree looking 
exactly like a giant sage-brush, thirty feet high ; and 
there were tall aloes and cactus and flat-topped mimosa. 
We found a wee hedgehog, with much white about it. 
He would cuddle up in my hand, snuffing busily with 
his funny little nose. We did not have the heart to 
turn the tame, friendly little fellow over to the natural¬ 
ists, and so we let him go. Birds abounded. One kind 
of cuckoo called like a whip-poor-will in the early morn¬ 
ing and late evening, and after nightfall. Among our 
friendly visitors were the pretty, rather strikingly 
coloured little chats—Livingstone’s wheatear—which 
showed real curiosity in coming into camp. They were 
