452 
THE GIANT ELAND 
[CH. XV 
steamer, with aboard it M. Solve, a Belgian sportsman, 
a very successful hunter, whom we had already met at 
Lado ; with him were his wife, his sister, and his 
brother-in-law, both of the last being as ardent in the 
chase, especially of dangerous game, as he was. His 
party had killed two whalebills, one for the British 
Museum and one for the Congo Museum. They were 
a male and female who were near their nest, which con¬ 
tained two downy young ; these were on M. Solves 
boat, where we saw them. The nest was right on the 
marsh water; the birds had bent the long blades of 
marsh grass into an interlacing foundation, and on this 
had piled grass, which they had cut with their beaks. 
These beaks can give a formidable bite, by the way, as 
one of our sailors found to his cost when he rashly tried 
to pick up a wounded bird. 
I was anxious to get a ewe of the saddle-back lechwe 
for the Museum, and landed in the late afternoon, on 
seeing a herd. The swamp was so deep that it took an 
hour’s very hard and fatiguing wading, forcing ourselves 
through the rank grass up to our shoulders in water, 
before we got near them. The herd numbered about 
forty individuals ; their broad trail showed where they 
had come through the swamp, and even through a 
papyrus bed ; but we found them grazing on merely 
moist ground, where there were ant-hills in the long 
grass. As I crept up they saw me, and greeted me 
with a chorus of croaking grunts ; they are a very noisy 
buck. I shot a ewe, and away rushed the herd through 
the long grass, making a noise which could have been 
heard nearly a mile off, and splashing and bounding 
through the shallow lagoons. They halted, and again 
begun grunting ; and then off they rushed once 
more. The doe’s stomach was filled with tender marsh 
