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CH. XII] CAUTIOUS STALKING 
wary, and more apt to be found in country where there 
were a good many bushes or small trees. Waterbuck 
and kob sometimes associated together. 
The best singsing bull I got I owed to Tarlton’s 
good eyesight and skill in tracking and stalking. The 
herd of which it was master bull were shy, and took 
the alarm just as we first saw them. Tarlton followed 
their trail for a couple of miles, and then stalked them 
to an inch by the dexterous use of a couple of bushes 
and an ant-hill, the ant-hill being reached after a two 
hundred yards’ crawl, first on all-fours and then flat on 
the ground, which resulted in my getting a good off¬ 
hand shot at a hundred and eighty yards. At this 
time, about the middle of November, some of the cows 
had new-born calves. One day I shot a hartebeest bull, 
with horns twenty-four inches long, as it stood on the 
top of an ant-heap. On going up to it we noticed 
something behind a little bush, sixty yards off. We 
were puzzled what it could be, but finally made out 
a waterbuck cow, and a minute or two later away she 
bounded to safety, followed by a wee calf. The porters 
much appreciated the flesh of the waterbuck. We did 
not. It is the poorest eating of African antelope ; and 
among the big antelope only the eland is good as a 
steady diet. 
One day we drove a big swamp, putting a hundred 
porters across it in line, while Kermit and I walked 
a little ahead of them along the edges, he on one side 
and I on the other. I shot a couple of bushbuck—an 
ewe and a young ram ; and after the drive was over he 
shot a female leopard as she stood on the side of an 
ant-hill. 
There were a number of both reedbuck and bush- 
buck in the swamp. The reedbuck were all ewes, 
