No Thorny Jungles And Rank Smelling Swamps Are Here To Daunt The Hunter, And To Sicken His Aspirations After True Sport!

No hunter could aspire after a nobler field to display his prowess.

Having settled the position of the camp, which overlooked one of the pools found in the depression of the Gombe creek, I took my double-barrelled smooth-bore, and sauntered off to the park-land. Emerging from behind a clump, three fine plump spring-bok were seen browsing on the young grass just within one hundred yards. I knelt down and fired; one unfortunate antelope bounded upward instinctively, and fell dead. Its companions sprang high into the air, taking leaps about twelve feet in length, as if they were quadrupeds practising gymnastics, and away they vanished, rising up like India-rubber balls; until a knoll hid them from view. My success was hailed with loud shouts by the soldiers; who came running out from the camp as soon as they heard the reverberation of the gun, and my gun-bearer had his knife at the beast's throat, uttering a fervent "Bismillah!" as he almost severed the head from the body.

Hunters were now directed to proceed east and north to procure meat, because in each caravan it generally happens that there are fundi, whose special trade it is to hunt for meat for the camp. Some of these are experts in stalking, but often find themselves in dangerous positions, owing to the near approach necessary, before they can fire their most inaccurate weapons with any certainty.

After luncheon, consisting of spring-bok steak, hot corn-cake, and a cup of delicious Mocha coffee, I strolled towards the south-west, accompanied by Kalulu and Majwara, two boy gun-bearers. The tiny perpusilla started up like rabbits from me as I stole along through the underbrush; the honey-bird hopped from tree to tree chirping its call, as if it thought I was seeking the little sweet treasure, the hiding-place of which it only knew; but no! I neither desired perpusilla nor the honey. I was on the search for something great this day. Keen-eyed fish-eagles and bustards poised on trees above the sinuous Gombe thought, and probably with good reason that I was after them; judging by the ready flight with which both species disappeared as they sighted my approach. Ah, no! nothing but hartebeest, zebra, giraffe, eland, and buffalo this day! After following the Gombe's course for about a mile, delighting my eyes with long looks at the broad and lengthy reaches of water to which I was so long a stranger, I came upon a scene which delighted the innermost recesses of my soul; five, six, seven, eight, ten zebras switching their beautiful striped bodies, and biting one another, within about one hundred and fifty yards. The scene was so pretty, so romantic, never did I so thoroughly realize that I was in Central Africa. I felt momentarily proud that I owned such a vast domain, inhabited with such noble beasts.

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