ON SAFARI 
313 
CH. Xl] 
one grows gratefully to accept as water anything that 
is wet. Klipspringers and baboons were in the precipitous 
hills around; and among the rocks were hyraxes (looking 
like our Rocky Mountain conies, or little chief hares), 
queer diurnal rats, and bright blue-green lizards with 
orange heads. Rhinos drank at this pool. We fre¬ 
quently saw them on our journey, but always managed 
to avoid wounding their susceptibilities, and so escaped 
an encounter. Each day we endeavoured to camp a 
couple of hours before sundown, so as to give the men 
plenty of chance to get firewood, pitch the tents, and 
put everything in order. Sometimes we would make 
an early start, in which case we would breakfast in the 
open, while in the east the crescent of the dying moon 
hung over the glow that heralded the sunrise. 
As we reached the high, rolling downs the weather 
grew cooler, and many flowers appeared ; those of the 
aloes were bright red, standing on high stalks above 
the clump of fleshy, spined leaves, which were hand¬ 
somely mottled, like a snake’s back. As I rode at the 
head of the safari I usually, in the course of the day, 
shot a buck of some kind for the table. I had not time 
to stalk, but simply took the shots as they came, generally 
at long range. One day I shot an eland, an old blue 
bull. We needed the skin for the Museum, and as 
there was water near by we camped where we were. I 
had already shot a waterbuck that morning, and this 
and the eland together gave the entire safari a feast of 
meat. 
On another occasion an eland herd afforded me fun, 
although no profit. I was mounted on Brownie, the 
zebra-shaped pony. Brownie would still occasionally run 
off when I dismounted to shoot (a habit that had cost 
me an eland bull); but he loved to gallop after game. 
