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CH. XIII] A S1TUTUNGA HUNT 
situtunga is closely related to the bushbuck, but is 
bigger, with very long hoofs, and shaggy hair like a 
waterbuck. It is exclusively a beast of the marshes, 
making its home in the thick reed-beds, where the water 
is deep ; and it is exceedingly shy, so that very few 
white men have shot, or even seen, it. Its long hoofs 
enable it to go over the most treacherous ground, and 
it swims well; in many of its haunts, in the thick 
papyrus, the water is waist-deep on a man. Through 
the papyrus, and the reeds and marsh grass, it makes 
well-beaten paths. Where it is in any danger of 
molestation it is never seen abroad in the daytime, 
venturing from the safe cover of the high reeds only at 
night; but fifty miles inland, in the marsh grass on the 
edge of a big papyrus swamp, Kermit caught a glimpse 
of half a dozen feeding in the open, knee-deep in water, 
long after sunrise. On the hunt in question a patch of 
marsh was driven by a hundred natives, while the guns 
were strung along the likely passes which led to another 
patch of marsh. A fine situtunga buck came to 
Kermit s post, and he killed it as it bolted away. It 
had stolen up so quietly through the long marsh grass 
that he only saw it when it was directly on him. Its 
stomach contained, not grass, but the leaves and twig 
tips of a shrub which grows in and alongside of the 
marshes. 
The day after this hunt our safari started on its 
march north-westward to Lake Albert Nyanza. We 
had taken with us from East Africa our gun-bearers 
tent-boys, and the men whom the naturalists had trained 
as skinners. The porters were men of Uganda ; the 
askaris were from the constabulary, and widely different 
races were represented among them, but all had been 
drilled into soldierly uniformity. The porters were 
