African Game Trails 
11 
talk together in Swahili, recounting the ad¬ 
ventures of the day, and chaffing one an¬ 
other with uproarious laughter about any 
small misadventure; a difference of opin¬ 
ion as to the direction of camp being always 
a subject, first for earnest discussion, and 
then for much mirth at the 
expense of whomever the 
event proved mistaken. 
My two horses, when I did 
not use them, grazed con¬ 
tentedly throughout the day 
near the little thorn boma 
which surrounded our tents; 
and at nightfall the friendly 
things came within it of their 
own accord to be given their 
feed of corn and be put in 
their own tent. When the 
sun was hot they were tor¬ 
mented by biting flies; but 
their work was easy, and 
they were well treated and 
throve. In the daytime vult¬ 
ures, kites, and white-necked 
ravens came round camp, 
and after nightfall jackals 
wailed and hyenas uttered 
their weird cries as they 
prowled outside the thorn 
walls. Twice, at midnight, 
we heard the ominous sigh¬ 
ing or moaning of a hungry 
lion, and I looked to my rifle, 
which always stood, loaded, 
at the head of my bed. But 
on neither occasion did he 
come near us. Every night 
a fire was kept burning in the 
entrance to the boma, and 
the three askaris watched in 
turn, with instructions to call N'januysi hut 
me if there was any need. A , 
I easily kept the camp in 
meat, as I had guessed that 
I could do. My men feasted on oryx and 
eland, while I reserved the tongues and 
tenderloins for myself. Each day I hunted 
for eight or ten hours, something of inter¬ 
est always happening. I would not shoot 
at the gazelles; and the game I did want 
was so shy that almost all my shots were 
at long range, and consequently a number 
of them did not hit. However, I came 
on my best oryx in rather thick bush, 
and killed it at a hundred and twenty- 
five yards, as it turned with a kind of 
sneeze of alarm or curiosity, and stood 
broadside to me, the sun glinting on its 
handsome coat and polished black horns. 
One of my Kikuyu followers packed the 
skin entire to camp. I had more trouble 
with another oryx, wounding it one evening 
at three hundred and fifty yards, and next 
morning following the trail and after much 
hard work and a couple of misses killing 
it with a shot at three hundred yards. On 
September 2 I found two newly born oryx 
calves. The color of the oryx made them 
less visible than hartebeeste when a long 
way off on the dry plains. I noticed that 
whenever we saw them mixed in a herd 
with zebra, it was the zebra that first struck 
