228 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING 
[CH. X 
more exasperating because interspersed with the misses 
were some good shots: I killed a fine waterbuck cow at 
a hundred yards, and a buck tommy for the table at two 
hundred and fifty; and, after missing a handsome black 
and white, red-billed and red-legged jabiru, or saddle¬ 
billed stork, at a hundred and fifty yards, as he stalked 
through the meadow after frogs, I cut him down on the 
wing at a hundred and eighty with the little Springfield 
rifle. 
The waterbuck spent the daytime outside, but near 
the edge of, the papyrus. I found them grazing or rest¬ 
ing, in the open, at all times between early morning 
and late afternoon. Some of them spent most of 
the day in the papyrus, keeping to the watery trails 
made by the hippos and by themselves ; but this was 
not the general habit, unless they had been persecuted. 
When frightened they often ran into the papyrus, smash¬ 
ing the dead reeds and splashing the water in their rush. 
They are noble-looking antelope, with long, shaggy 
hair, and their chosen haunts beside the lake were very 
attractive. Clumps of thorn-trees and flowering bushes 
grew at the edge of the tall papyrus here and there, and 
often formed a matted jungle, the trees laced together 
by creepers, many of them brilliant in their bloom. 
The climbing morning-glories sometimes completely 
covered a tree with their pale purple flowers, and other 
blossoming vines spangled the green over which their 
sprays were flung with masses of bright yellow. 
Four days’march from Naivasha, where we again left 
Mearns and Loring, took us to Neri. Our line of march 
lay across the high plateaux and mountain chains of the 
Aberdare range. The steep, twisting trail was slippery 
with mud. Our last camp, at an altitude of about ten 
thousand feet, was so cold that the water froze in the 
