THE ROAN ANTELOPE 
101 
maned, right down to the withers. It is this stiff up¬ 
standing mane (which in an old bull exceeds six inches 
in vertical height), combined with their high withers and 
immensely thick neck, that gives roan their massive and 
imposing appearance — hence also their Arabic name 
Abu Uruf ( = “Father of the mane”). 
The height at shoulder of this bull I made one inch 
short of 5 feet straight; the cow lay awkwardly to 
measure, but was certainly 6 to 8 inches less. 
Their horns, heavily ringed, were stained deep Indian 
red—probably from rubbing on the mimosa-bark—and 
measured:—bull 31J inches by 8| in basal circumference ; 
cow 22 inches by 61 at base. 
On the homeward march, heavily-laden, we walked 
openly past a herd of tiang within easy shot. The open 
or thinly-bushed country hereabouts swarms with these 
antelopes, and, on one occasion, I saw what I believe to 
have been an almost equally big troop of roan. When first 
descried, these animals were standing inside a fringe of 
forest, thirty or forty, I then thought. But on our 
attempting to cross the open prairie that intervened, 
the whole forest seemed amove. By the clouds of dust 
raised and the breadth occupied thereby, I judged 
there must have been well over a hundred animals. 
Possibly, however, some few of the troop may have 
been tiang. 
Besides the above game, we saw here daily an odd 
gazelle or two and constantly struck spoor of lion, 
giraffe, and twice of buffalo. One morning we came on 
a foot-thick heglig-tree (Balanites egyptiaca) broken off 
short by elephants, which had feasted on its bitter¬ 
sweet, date-like fruit (called lalob by natives), scatter¬ 
ing the rest far and wide. To me the fracture looked 
new; but Baraka declared that the spoor was some 
days old. 
