Only Before Us We Could See The
Stripes Of Trotting Zebra Disappearing; And Catch The Glint Of
Light On The Bayonets Of The Oryx.
Two giraffes galumphed away to
the right.
Little grass antelope darted from clump to clump of
grass. Once we saw gerenuk-oh, far away in an impossible
distance. Of course we tried to stalk them; and as usual we
failed. The gerenuk we had come to look upon as our Lesser
Hoodoo.
The beast is a gazelle about as big as a black-tailed deer. His
peculiarity is his excessively long neck, a good deal on the
giraffe order. With it he crops browse above high tide mark of
other animals, especially when as often happens he balances
cleverly on his hind legs. By means of it also he can, with his
body completely concealed, look over the top of ordinary cover
and see you long before you have made out his inconspicuous
little head. Then he departs. He seems to have a lamentable lack
of healthy curiosity about you. In that respect he should take
lessons from the kongoni. After that you can follow him as far as
you please; you will get only glimpses at three or four hundred
yards.
We remounted sadly and rode on. The surface of the ground was
rather soft, scattered with round rocks the size of a man's head,
and full of pig holes.
"Cheerful country to ride over at speed," remarked Billy. Later
in the day we had occasion to remember that statement.
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