These animals are given to restless roaming across open plains of sand, feeding chiefly on scant grass-tufts, where there is little cover, except an odd acacia, solitary or in a straggling group, and the sentinel-like Jiga, which is the choice tree of the solitudes, and the favoured shade of game.
It is under such scattered, dwarf-sized trees that Oryx and Addax are in the habit of resting when the sun is at its height; and it was then that I had a chance to get within rifle-shot, by manœuvring to utilise any slight dip in the land, and by crawling or sprawling long distances flatwise on my “tummy.” By reason of the extreme openness of the country it was stalking of a high order, and hence nerve-exciting and engrossing. Specimens for the museum were wanted, and, although I lost most of the skin from my knees owing to the cutting nature of the hot, sharp sand, I had one or two glorious hunts that ended successfully, and made ample compensation.
DORCAS GAZELLE
White Oryx are killed locally on occasion, by the few Tuaregs and Beri-Beri who roam the region. They ride them down on horseback in the following manner.
When an animal is sighted, and chosen as the quarry, the long race starts, but eventually the Oryx shows the horse a clean pair of heels. The persistent hunter then follows the tracks in the sand until the quarry is again sighted, and a second race ensues. At the end of this struggle of speed the Oryx may break down and become so hopelessly broken-winded that it is easily approached and destroyed. Sometimes a third race is necessary, and, on rare occasions, a fourth. Escape is only possible if the stamina of the horse is over sorely tried, and the hunter has pity enough to cease asking more of his mount.
Jackals and Striped Hyenas were plentiful in the neighbourhood of the game and a few were seen, and tracks of their night prowlings constantly. I have a note regarding the remarkable strength of the Hyena. One day, having skinned a large male ostrich, I had the discarded carcass (not eaten by the natives because its throat had not been cut, as their Mohammedan religion demands) drawn about forty yards away from the camp. At dusk a single Hyena came to the carcass and, to the astonishment of all, commenced to pull it farther away so that it might enjoy the feast out of danger of its enemies. It had taken no less than four strong men to drag the same carcass, by aid of ropes, from camp to the position it occupied—a task this single Hyena was capable of. I have scaled dead ostrich, and know that this particular bird weighed in the neighbourhood of 300 lbs.
In the interior of the Sahara there is nothing to compare with the game to be found on its southern margin. The desert is practically barren excepting in rare wadis that have sufficient vegetation to attract a few Dorcas Gazelle, and perhaps a Desert Fox or Wild Cat, or the like, that feed chiefly on the rodents about the tussock bottoms.
But the mountain regions are havens to a certain amount of animal life, and it is there that one finds the Arui, or Barbary Sheep. In Aïr they are sufficiently rare—because of the altitudes they frequent and the wildness of the mountains, not because of their numbers—to make the quest for them highly interesting. In Ahaggar they are very scarce.
Wild and keen-sensed in sight and hearing, and in difficult country, these mountain sheep are fine animals to hunt, from the point of view of the sportsman. They live in magnificently wild fastnesses, and are truly superb creatures; particularly when caught at eve or dawn poised on the precarious pinnacles of the world, sniffing the wind and inquiring the dangers of the crags beneath them.