270 
African Game Trails 
hide shields, occasionally strolled by us; and 
we passed many bomas, the kraals where 
the stock is gathered at night, with the huts 
of the owners ringing them. Yet there was 
much game in the country also, chiefly 
zebra and hartebeest; the latter, according 
to their custom, continually jumping up on 
anthills to get a clearer view of me, and 
sometimes standing on them motionless for 
a considerable time, as sentries to scan the 
country around. 
At last we spied a herd of topi, distin¬ 
guishable from the hartebeest at a very 
long distance by their 
dark coloring, the pur¬ 
ples and browns giving 
the coat a heavy shading 
which when far off, in cer¬ 
tain lights, looks almost 
black. Topi, hartebeest, 
and wildebeest belong to 
the same group, and are 
specialized, and their pe¬ 
culiar physical and men¬ 
tal traits developed, in 
the order named. The 
wildebeest is the least 
normal and most gro¬ 
tesque and odd-looking 
of the three, and his idio¬ 
syncrasies of temper are 
also the most marked. 
The hartebeest comes 
next, with his very high 
withers, long face, and 
queerly shaped horns; 
while the topi, although with a general 
hartebeest look, has the features of shape 
and horn less pronounced, and bears a 
greater resemblance to his more ordinary 
kinsfolk. In the same way, though it will 
now and then buck and plunge when it be¬ 
gins to run after being startled, its de¬ 
meanor is less pronounced in this respect. 
The topi’s power of leaping is great; I have 
seen one when frightened bound clear over 
a companion, and immediately afterward 
over a high anthill. 
The herd of topi we saw was more shy 
than the neighboring zebra and harte¬ 
beest. There was no cover and I spent 
an hour trying to walk up to them by 
manoeuvring in one way and another. 
They did not run clear away, but kept 
standing and letting me approach to dis¬ 
tances varying from four hundred and fifty 
to six hundred yards; tempting me to shoot, 
while nevertheless I could not estimate the 
range accurately, and was not certain 
whether I was over or under-shooting. So 
I fired more times than I care to mention 
before I finally got my topi—at just five 
hundred and twenty yards. It was a hand¬ 
some cow, weighing two hundred and sixty 
pounds; for topi are somewhat smaller than 
kongoni. The beauty of its coat, in texture 
and coloring, struck me afresh as I looked 
at the sleek creature stretched out on the 
grass. Like the eland, it was free from 
ticks; for the hideous 
pests do not frequent this 
part of the country in 
any great numbers. 
I reached camp early 
in the' afternoon, and sat 
down at the mouth of 
my tent to enjoy myself. 
It was on such occa¬ 
sions that the “pigskin 
library” proved itself in¬ 
deed a blessing. In ad¬ 
dition to the original 
books we had picked up 
one or two old favorites 
on the way: Alice’s Ad¬ 
ventures, for instance, 
and Fitzgerald—I say 
Fitzgerald, because read¬ 
ing other versions of 
Omar Khayyam always 
leaves me with the feel¬ 
ing that Fitzgerald is the 
major partner in the book we really like. 
Then there was a book I had not read, 
Dumas’s“LeslouvesdeMachecoul.” This 
was presented to me at Port Said by M. 
Jusserand, the brother of an old and valued 
friend, the French ambassador at Washing¬ 
ton—the vice-president of the “Tennis 
Cabinet.” We had been speaking of Bal¬ 
zac, and I mentioned regretfully that I did 
not at heart care for his longer novels ex¬ 
cepting the “ Chouans”; and, as John Hay 
once told me, in the eyes of all true Balzac - 
ians, to like the “ Chouans” merely aggra¬ 
vates the offence of not liking the novels 
which theydeem really great. M. Jusserand 
thereupon asked me if I knew Dumas’s 
Vendean novel; being a fairly good Dumas 
man, I was rather ashamed to admit that 
I did not; whereupon he sent it to me, and 
I enjoyed it to the full. 
