I once watched a small herd of giraffes from the top of an ‘earth boil,’ and from my elevated position got a splendid view of them. They were standing about 500 yards off, in fairly open bush of uniform dark green, which in the distance appeared to be pretty thick, and formed a good background to the numerous mimosa-trees with their table-tops of a much brighter green, on which the giraffes were feeding. The strongly marked colouring of these gigantic and stately creatures towering above the bush made them stand out in clear contrast to their surroundings, as they slowly moved from tree to tree, gracefully twisting and turning their long necks to enable them to nibble the tender shoots of the mimosas in their usual delicate manner, giving me the impression that they might indeed be ‘monarchs of all they surveyed.’
The ostrich (Struthio molybdophanes) of East and Central Africa is distinguished from the South African bird by its greater size, and by the cock bird having a blue neck. The feathers at any time are inferior and of little or no market value. The only two birds that I have ever seen with feathers that were at all good were killed by Mr. H. C. V. Hunter at Kilimanjaro in 1887, when he had the good fortune to bag them shortly after they had moulted, and before they had rubbed and damaged their wing-feathers when dusting themselves. The ostrich is plentiful in many parts of the country, and goes about in small troops, generally three or four together, though I have twice seen a troop of thirteen, once in the Arusha-wa-Chini country, and once at Machako’s. An adult cock ostrich, when standing upright, would measure quite 10 ft. to the crown of his head, the hen being rather smaller. How far this bird ranges to the south I am unable to say, but to the north I have seen it near Lake Baringo. The Swahili and Arab traders, who now go up to Lake Rudolph, occasionally bring down small bunches of feathers, which, however, are probably of another species. Throughout the Masai country and east of it to the coast ostriches are to be found in most of the plains and open bush country, where they find plenty of green herbage to feed on, whether grass or the leaves of various bushes. At Merereni, on the coast, in 1886, where I bagged three, two cocks and a hen, the hen bird was feeding on the young shoots of a small-leaved mangrove bush by the side of a creek. Each of these birds when cut open was found to have about 3 lbs. weight of pebbles inside its gizzard.
Ostriches are even more difficult to stalk than giraffes, as they are mostly found out in the open, and unless the sportsman can get a bush sufficiently tall to prevent their seeing him over it, or can take advantage of the dry bed of a watercourse, should there be one near, it is almost hopeless to try to stalk them. They are, however, not difficult to drive, and I have twice succeeded in circumventing them in this way, once with Sir Robert Harvey, and another time when alone. Once I tried to approach a troop of five by using my imitation ostrich, the Bushman’s stratagem (with which I was so successful with G. Grantii), but failed so hopelessly—the birds at once detecting the fraud and never allowing me to get within 500 yards of them—that I never tried it again. The best day I ever had with these birds was when I came across three, which I saw from a long way off, feeding amongst some small scattered bushes on a slope in undulating ground. By taking advantage of the low ground on the other side of the undulation, I succeeded, after a long and painful crawl, in getting up to a bush near the top. Here I could see the long neck and head of one of them over the brow, and was pleased to notice that they had altered their position and were feeding in my direction. Sitting quite still, I waited until they were within seventy yards of me, and got two of them with a right and left shot. The other one bolted down the slope of the hill away from me and disappeared for a few seconds, but apparently lost its head; for on standing up I saw it coming back; as it had not seen me, I stooped down behind the bush, and when it raced past about seventy or eighty yards off, with head held back and wings extended, I knocked it over.
1 C. Harveyi. 2 G. Petersi. 3 N. montanus. 4 C. bohor.
CHAPTER XVI
ANTELOPES
By F. J. Jackson
Antelope shooting is unattended with danger, and yet antelopes afford if anything better sport than any of the dangerous game-beasts found in Africa. Creatures such as rhinos, buffaloes, and elephants have not so many enemies as the antelopes, and can therefore afford to be far less watchful than these beasts, whose natural shyness and marvellously developed senses test the stalker’s skill to the very utmost. If, as it seems to me, sport should be measured not so much by the amount of danger incurred as by the degree of skill required, there is more sport to be had in outwitting the ever-watchful oryx or wildebeest or eland than in killing either a rhinoceros or buffalo—beasts peculiarly easy to stalk unless accompanied by birds, as already described. In antelope stalking, from the beginning to the end of the business the greatest care has to be exercised, lest an incautious movement, either of the stalker or the gun-bearer who crawls behind him, should alarm the watchful game; and the anxiety lest something of this kind should occur, coupled with the physical strain in crawling on the hands and knees or flat upon the stomach during a long stalk, intensifies the satisfaction when the hunter does succeed in outwitting them.
At certain seasons of the year, when the grass has grown 18 ins. or 2 ft. high, stalking is comparatively easy even in the open plains, and requires then nothing but endurance on the stalker’s part to enable him to succeed. But stalking is a very different business when the grass has been burnt and there is no covert except a few skeleton bushes and small ant-heaps, or a few patches of grass which have escaped the fire.