310 
THE GUASO NYERO 
[CH. XI 
ten feet of her. Nearer I did not care to venture, as 
giraffe strike and kick very hard with their hoofs, and, 
moreover, occasionally strike with the head, the blow 
seemingly not being delivered with the knobby, skin- 
covered horns, but with the front teeth of the lower 
jaw. She waked, looked at me, and then, rearing 
slightly, struck at me with her left fore-leg, the blow 
falling short. I laughed and leaped back, and the other 
men ran up shouting. But the giraffe would not run 
away. She stood within twenty feet of us, looking at 
us peevishly, and occasionally pouting her lips at us, as 
if she were making a face. We kept close to the tree, 
so as to dodge round it, under the branches, if she came 
at us, for we should have been most reluctant to shoot 
her. I threw a stick at her, hitting her in the side, but 
she paid no attention; and when Bakhari came behind 
her with a stick she turned sharply on him and he 
made a prompt retreat. W e were laughing and talking 
all the time. Then we pelted her with sticks and clods 
of earth, and, after having thus stood within twenty feet 
of us for three or four minutes, she cantered slowly off 
for fifty yards, and then walked away with leisurely 
unconcern. She was apparently in the best of health 
and in perfect condition. She did not get our wind, 
but her utter indifference to the close presence of four 
men is inexplicable. 1 
On each of the two days we hunted this little district 
we left camp at sunrise, and did not return until eight 
or nine in the evening, fairly well tired, and not a little 
1 After writing the above account I read it over to Mr. Cuning- 
hame so as to be sure that it was accurate in all its details. All 
the game was tame in this locality, even the giraffe, but no other 
giraffe allowed us to get within two hundred yards, and most of 
them ran long before that distance was reached, even when we were 
stalking carefully. 
