The hartebeest is about as large as a donkey. The horns vary greatly in shape and size; there are the short massive horns and the long pointed ones, and all the variations between. Some curve forward, with the points thrown back; others curve outwards in the same plane with the forehead, the points turning inward. I never heard of hartebeests in the whole of Guban or anywhere in the parts of Ogádén which I have visited; I have seen them on open plains in the Haud and Ogo, and nowhere else.
Waterbuck (Cobus ellipsiprymnus)
Native name, Balanka, among the Adone (Webbe negroes); corrupted to Balango by the Somális
I believe there are no waterbuck to be found in Somáliland except on the banks of the Webbe Shabéleh, and perhaps the Lower Nogal, near the east coast. There are none on the Tug Fáfan, at any of the points where I have crossed it. They are said to be numerous all along the Webbe Ganána (Juba), the course of which lies chiefly through Gállaland.
The first important collections of the waterbuck were, I think, made by Colonel Arthur Paget and myself on two independent but simultaneous expeditions to the Webbe last spring. I found these antelopes very plentiful all along both banks of the river, from Imé down to Burka in the Aulihán tribe, which was as far as I followed the stream. They lie up in the dense forest which clothes both banks of the river for some two hundred yards from the water’s edge; and they go out to feed in the open grass flats outside the belts of forest. They go in small herds of about fifteen individuals, though most of the herds I saw consisted of only four or five, with one old buck.
The habits of the Somáli waterbuck are, I believe, similar to those of the same species in other parts of Africa. They feed chiefly on grass, delight in a mud-bath, and take to the water readily; a wounded buck which I was following in thick forest tried to escape by swimming the Webbe, some ninety yards across, and we shot him as he galloped along the farther bank. The bucks on the Webbe vary much in colour, from brownish gray to nearly black. The white lunate marking over the tail is always present; some heads have the forehead bright rufous brown, and others are nearly black in this part. The flesh is eaten by the negroes of the Webbe, but not by Somális. The horns obtained on the Webbe are small compared to waterbuck horns from more southern Africa; out of some fifteen heads of old bucks collected by me at different times none reached twenty-five inches. The females are hornless. The waterbuck is about the size of a red-deer, and resembles the latter in the shape of the head, though the body stands on shorter and stouter legs.
Bushbuck (Tragelaphus decula)
Native name, Dól
The bushbuck is somewhat larger than a fallow deer, and is common in the dense forest on the Webbe banks; and it is the most wary and difficult to shoot of all the game animals I have ever encountered. I never heard of its existence till my second expedition to the Webbe last autumn. At Karanleh I obtained from the natives several skins and horns of Dól which had been caught by means of disguised pits, with a stake in the bottom of each. These pits are made by the Adone, and are funnel-shaped, about eight feet deep and five in diameter at the top. They are dug in the densest jungle, in the paths most frequented by the bushbuck when going to and returning from the water. Some of these paths are long tunnels three feet high, bored through the masses of vegetation for fifty yards or more, and often I could only get to the river by creeping on all-fours through these tunnels; this may be exciting work when it is considered that many kinds of game, including the lion and rhinoceros, use them.