298 THE GUASO NYERO [ch. xi 
be a good hunting horse. On the right were two 
giraffe, which eventually turned out to be a big cow, 
followed by a nearly full-grown young one; but 
Cuninghame, scanning them through his glasses, and 
misled by the dark coloration, pronounced them a bull 
and cow, and after the big one I went. By good luck 
we were on one of the rare pieces of the country which 
was fitted for galloping. I rode at an angle to the 
giraffe’s line of flight, thus gaining considerably; and 
when it finally turned and went straight away I followed 
it at a fast run, and before it was fully awake to the 
danger I was but a hundred yards behind. We were 
now getting into bad country, and, jumping off, I 
opened fire and crippled the great beast. Mounting, I 
overtook it again in a quarter of a mile and killed it. 
In half an hour the skinners and porters came up. 
One of the troubles of hunting as a naturalist is that it 
necessitates the presence of a long tail of men to take 
off and carry in the big skins, in order that they may 
ultimately appear in museums. In an hour and a half 
the giraffe’s skin, with the head and the leg bones, was 
slung on two poles ; eight porters bore it, while the 
others took for their own use all the meat they could 
carry. They were in high good-humour, for an abundant 
supply of fresh meat always means a season of rejoicing, 
and they started campwards singing loudly under their 
heavy burdens. While the giraffe was being skinned 
we had seen a rhinoceros feeding near our line of march 
campwards, and had watched it until the light grew 
dim. By the time the skin was ready night had fallen, 
and we started under the brilliant moon. It lit up the 
entire landscape ; but moonlight is not sunlight, and 
there was the chance of our stumbling on the rhino 
unawares, and of its charging, so I rode at the head of 
