24 
African Game Trails 
through and above the tree-tops. There was 
absolutely no dew at night, by the way. The 
Guaso Nyero runs across and along the 
equator, through a desert country, east¬ 
ward into the dismal Lorian swamp, where 
it disappears, save in very wet seasons, when 
it continues to the Tana. At our camp it 
was a broad, rapid, muddy stream infested 
with crocodiles. Along its banks grew 
groves of ivory-nut palms, their fronds fan¬ 
shaped, their tall trunks forked twenty or 
thirty feet from the ground, each stem again 
forking—something like the antlers of a 
black-tail buck. In the frond of a small palm 
of this kind we found a pale-colored, very 
long-tailed tree mouse in its nest, which was 
a ball of chopped straw. Spurfowl and 
francolin abounded, their grating cries being 
heard everywhere; I shot a few as well as 
one or two sandgrouse; and with the rifle I 
knocked off the heads of two guinea fowls. 
The last feat sounds better in the narration 
than it was in the performance;' for I wast¬ 
ed nearly a beltful of cartridges in achieving 
it, as the guineas were shy and ran rapidly 
through the tall grass. I also expended a 
large number of cartridges before securing 
a couple of gerunuk; the queer, long-legged, 
long-necked antelope were wary, and as 
soon as they caught a glimpse of me off they 
would go at a stealthy trot or canter through 
the bushes, with neck outstretched. They 
had a curious habit of rising on their hind 
legs to browse among the bushes; I do not 
remember seeing any other antelope act in 
this manner. There were water-buck along 
the river banks, and I shot a couple of good 
bulls; they belonged to the southern and 
eastern species, which has a light-colored 
ring around the rump; whereas the western 
form, which I saw at Naivasha, has the 
whole rump light-colored. They like the 
neighborhood of lakes and rivers. I have 
seen parties of them resting in the open 
plains during the day, under trees which 
yielded little more shade than telegraph 
poles. The handsome, shaggy-coated wa¬ 
ter-buck has not the high withers which 
mark the oryx, wildebeeste, andhartebeeste, 
and he carries his head and neck more like 
a stag or a wapiti bull. 
One day we went back from the river 
after giraffe. It must have been a year 
since any rain had fallen. The surface of 
the baked soil was bare and cracked, the 
sparse tussocks of grass were brittle straw, 
and the trees and bushes were leafless; but 
instead of leaves they almost all carried 
thorns, the worst being those of the wait- 
a-bit, which tore our clothes, hands, and 
faces. We found the giraffe three or four 
miles away from the river, in an absolutely 
waterless region, densely covered with these 
leafless wait-a-bit thorn bushes. Hanging 
among the bare bushes, by~ the way, we 
roused two or three of the queer, diurnal, 
golden-winged, slate-colored bats; they flew 
freely in the glare of the sunlight, mind¬ 
ing it as little as they did the furnace-like 
heat. We found the really dense wait-a-bit 
thorn thickets quite impenetrable, whereas 
the giraffe moved through them with utter 
unconcern. But the giraffe’s indifference 
to thorns is commonplace compared to its 
indifference to water. These particular 
giraffe were not drinking either at the river 
or at the one or two streams which were 
running into it; and in certain places giraffe 
will subsist for months without drinking at 
all. How the waste and evaporation of 
moisture from their huge bodies is sup¬ 
plied is one of the riddles of biology. 
We could not get a bull giraffe, and it was 
only a bull that I wanted. I was much in¬ 
terested, however, in coming up to a cow 
asleep. She stood with her neck drooping 
slightly forward, occasionally stamping or 
twitching an ear, like a horse when asleep 
standing. I saw her legs first, through the 
bushes, and finally walked directly up to 
her in the open, until I stood facing her at 
thirty yards. When she at last suddenly 
saw me, she came nearer to the execution of 
a gambol than any other giraffe 1 have ever 
seen. 
Another day we went after the buffalo 
We left camp before sunrise, riding along 
parallel to the river to find the spoor of a 
herd which had drunk and was returning to 
the haunts, away from the river, in which 
they here habitually spent the day. Two or 
three hours passed before we found what 
we sought; and we at once began to follow 
the trail. It was in open thorn bush, and 
the animals were evidently feeding. Before 
we had followed the spoor half an hour we 
ran across a rhinoceros. As the spoor led 
above wind, and as we did not wish to leave 
it for fear of losing it, Cuninghame stayed 
where he was, and I moved round to within 
fifty yards of the rhino, and, with my rifle 
ready, began shouting, trying to keep the 
