GIRAFFES 
297 
CH. Xl] 
a few hundred yards. But there were certain trails 
which did not fade out. These were the ones which 
led to water. One such we followed. It led across 
stretches of grassland, through thin bush, thorny and 
almost leafless, over tracts of rotten soil, cracked and 
crumbling, and over other tracts where the unshod 
horses picked their way gingerly among the masses of 
sharp-edged volcanic stones. Other trails joined in, 
and it grew more deeply marked. At last it led to a 
bend in a little river, where flat shelves of limestone 
bordered a kind of pool in the current where there were 
beds of green rushes and a fringe of trees and thorn 
thickets. This was evidently a favourite drinking- 
place. Many trails converged toward it, and for a long 
distance round the ground was worn completely bare 
by the hoofs of the countless herds of thirsty game that 
had travelled thither from time immemorial. Sleek, 
handsome, long-horned oryx, with switching tails, were 
loitering in the vicinity; and at the water-hole itself we 
surprised a band of gazelles not fifty yards off. They 
fled panic-stricken in every direction. Men and horses 
drank their fill, and we returned to the sunny plains 
and the endless reaches of withered, rustling grass. 
At last, an hour or two before sunset, when the heat 
had begun to abate a little, we spied half a dozen 
giraffes scattered a mile and a half ahead of us feeding 
on the tops of the few widely-separated thorn-trees. 
Cuninghame and I started toward them on foot, but 
they saw us when we were a mile away, and, after 
gazing a short while, turned and went off at their usual 
rocking-horse canter, twisting and screwing their tails. 
W e mounted and rode after them. I was on my zebra¬ 
shaped brown horse, which was hardy and with a fair 
turn of speed, and which by this time I had trained to 
