The Latter Were Ladies
Of Leisure, With Wonderful Chignons, Much Jewelery, And
Patterned Mericani Wrapped Gracefully About Their Pretty Figures.
By the time we had seen all these things it was noon.
We ate
lunch. The various members of the party decided to do various
things. I elected to go out with McMillan while he killed a
wildebeeste, and I am very glad I did. It was a most astonishing
performance.
You must imagine us driving out the gate in a buckboard behind
four small but lively white Abyssinian mules. In the front seat
were Michael, the Hottentot driver, and McMillan's Somali
gunbearer. In the rear seat were McMillan and myself, while a
small black syce perched precariously behind. Our rifles rested
in a sling before us. So we jogged out on the road to Long Juju,
examining with a critical eye the herds of game to right and left
of us. The latter examined us, apparently, with an eye as
critical. Finally, in a herd of zebra, we espied a lone
wildebeeste.
The wildebeeste is the Jekyll and Hyde of the animal kingdom. His
usual and familiar habit is that of a heavy, sluggish animal,
like our vanished bison. He stands solid and inert, his head
down; he plods slowly forward in single file, his horns swinging,
each foot planted deliberately. In short, he is the
personification of dignity, solid respectability, gravity of
demeanour. But then all of a sudden, at any small interruption,
he becomes the giddiest of created beings.
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