68 
THE KILIM A-NJAR 0 EXPEDITION. 
success. The fact is, in African travel, it is not easy 
to combine the accomplishment of twenty or thirty 
miles walked every day on foot, with the exploits of 
the chase, especially when haunted by the knowledge 
that every minute’s delay that separates you from your 
water-supply is dangerous. You leave the road just 
to stalk a group of zebras grazing not more than two 
hundred yards off, and you think if you can only creep 
up to that ant-hill and hide behind it, you will get a 
splendidly easy shot. Well, the ant-hill is reached, but 
the zebras have moved off a little farther, and now there 
is a stumpy mimosa-tree between you and your aim. 
However, it is a matter of a few paces to crawl np 
to it and fire from behind its branches. You reach 
the tree, and just as you are going to raise your gun 
you crack a dead twig, and the zebras move and trot 
off some distance farther. Now it is too long a shot 
to risk, but as the game is grazing peacefully and 
unsuspiciously again, you may just as well creep up a 
little nearer and then fire. So you go down on all- 
fours in the grass, and crawl along, putting your 
hands invariably down on cruel thorns or sharp twigs 
every time they touch the ground; your back aches 
with the snake-like posture you assume, and when at 
length you cautiously raise your head above the grass 
and dare to look frankly before you, you find the 
zebras have moved on again, and you either crawl 
after them, infatuated with the love of hunting, or in 
desperation foolishly fire your gun at a distant speck, 
and of course miss, when all that remains of the animals 
you have stalked is a light cloud of red dust hanging 
in the hot air. And now you become fully conscious 
of how foolish you have been to leave the caravan. 
How hot the sun is ! And your blistered feet ache as 
