142 
EAST AFRICA AND ITS BIG GAME. 
effect of sending him clean out of sight in a remarkably 
short space of time. I am afraid I could not have made 
a complete miss, and determined never again to shoot 
at these animals at such a long range, as I consider it 
cruelty not to make certain of killing them by getting 
within at least thirty to forty yards. After this I 
began my homeward journey, and soon came across 
a single wildebeest, of which species I had already 
seen two herds in the distance. My efforts to stalk 
this creature were much hampered by the hartebeest and 
zebra, which almost surrounded him, and I had a very 
long and painful crawl over ground completely strewn 
with innumerable sharp little stones. It was quite two 
hours before I got within two hundred yards of my 
quarry, as I had to stop every few minutes to let some 
hartebeest or zebra feed out of the way, the wilde¬ 
beest in the meanwhile always moving slowly on. 
Having at last got within that distance of him, and 
not being able to get any nearer, I made a very good 
shot, hitting exactly where I aimed, behind the ear, 
and he fell in his tracks without a kick. He turned 
out to be a very good bull; the horns, not unlike those 
of the buffalo on a small scale except that they do 
not meet in front, were twenty-seven inches at their 
widest spread, and sixteen and a half from tip to tip. 
He had a thin mane of black hair running down his 
neck and back, and a thick tail terminating in a long 
bunch of coarse black hair; he was about the size of 
a small English bullock, with a brindled body and dun- 
coloured quarters. These animals are most ungrace- 
