420 ON SAFARI IN SOTIK WILDERNESS AND LAKE NAIVASHA 
brute. The bullet caught the animal in mid career, striking in a mortal 
spot, and down came the ferocious beast in a heap almost at the 
hunter’s feet. Death had met the bounding animal full face in its 
charge, but it had been a narrow call for the hunter, who, as he rested 
for a moment on his rifle, felt that he had been nearer death than ever 
in his life before. But with this feeling was one of gratified pride 
that he owed his safety to himself alone and had in that moment of 
peril taken rank with the great hunters of the world. The bullet had 
struck the animal full in the middle of the chest and torn through 
heart and body in a death-dealing course. 
We have given only a few of the adventures of the hunters in 
the Sotik country. While the one just described was much the most 
perilous, their trip was attended with daily perils. To Mr. Roosevelt’s 
bag of game he added a splendidly maned lion, a lioness, four rhinoc¬ 
eroses and three buffaloes, while Kermit brought down a big bull 
eland, a lioness and two rhinos. To these must be added a great 
variety of other game which fell to the lot of both. 
Of these the eland must be classed among the big game, though it 
does not rank with the perilous ones. Trusting to its legs for safety 
and very alert in its movements, it is hard to approach within sure rifle 
range, and the hunter is often obliged to try his luck at four hundred 
yards or even greater distances. Roosevelt brought down a big bull 
on the Atlii plains when a quarter mile away, but a mortal shot at this 
range is a very uncertain problem. He tells us that the eland is as 
heavy as a fat ox and that a herd of them looks like a troop of hand¬ 
some cattle, yet their agility is so great that he had seen a cow leap 
clear over the backs of others that were in its way. 
While the eland trusts to flight from the hunter for safety, the 
buffalo is far more likely to make its flight towards the hunter, on 
deadly work intent. It is, in fact, one of the most savage and danger¬ 
ous of African animals, probably surpassing the lion in the number 
of hunters slain by it. The three buffaloes brought down by Mr. 
Roosevelt in this excursion were not got without greater risk than 
that run in shooting the four rhinos which he scored to his credit. 
In one of his hunts for buffalo in the Nairobi district, a herd of 
nearly a hundred of these savage brutes was put up. These had their 
