My Heels Were Also Raw, And I Viciously Cut Large Circles Out Of My Shoes To Enable Me To Move About.

Having converted my zinc canteens into bullets, and provided myself with a butcher and gun-bearer, I set out

For the lovely park-land and plain west of Mpokwa stream, with the laudable resolution to obtain something; and seeing nothing in the plain, I crossed over a ridge, and came to a broad basin covered with tall grass, with clumps here and there of hyphene palm, with a stray mimosa or so scattered about. Nibbling off the branches of the latter, I saw a group of giraffes, and then began stalking them through the grass, taking advantage of the tall grass-grown ant-hills that I might approach the wary beasts before their great eyes could discover me. I contrived to come within 175 yards, by means of one of these curious hummocks; but beyond it no man could crawl without being observed - the grass was so thin and short. I took a long breath, wiped my perspiring brow, and sat down for a while; my black assistants also, like myself, were almost breathless with the exertion, and the high expectations roused by the near presence of the royal beasts. I toyed lovingly with the heavy Reilly, saw to my cartridges, and then stood up and turned, with my rifle ready; took one good, long, steady aim; then lowered it again to arrange the sights, lifted it up once more - dropped it. A giraffe half turned his body; for the last time I lifted it, took one quick sight at the region of the heart, and fired. He staggered, reeled, then made a short gallop; but the blood was spouting from the wound in a thick stream, and before he had gone 200 yards he came to a dead halt, with his ears drawn back, and allowed me to come within twenty yards of him, when, receiving a zinc bullet through the head, he fell dead.

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