The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1906-06-09
THE LAND OF BIG GAME.
EXPEDITION INTO UPLANDS OF
BRITISH EAST AFRICA.

Stalking a Lion-An Encounter With
RhinOceros.
The hunting of big game is a pursuit
which holds a deep fascination for
those who have a taste for it. For the
sake of It's favorite sport the hunter is
ready to turn his back on friends and
on the comforts and pleasures of civil
lied life and to 60 out into the wilder
ness to make his home in a small tent,
to live Oh hardy ,scanty fare, to face
loneliness, to undergo severe physical
toll. to endure all extremes Of weather
and to encounter cheerfully hardships,
sickness and the many dangers that the
lita involves.
A hunting tour after big game is not
only pleasant from the contrast 1t pre-
sents to life in thebusy world; It is full
of Ifasclna ton in itself and an expedi-
ton made in the uplands of British
East Africa, where there are great
tracts of empty country teeming with
game, Is an experience that is full of
delight and that leaves rich store of
pleasant memories behind, writes E.
G. J, Moyna in Macmillan's Magazine.
On the march you come on patches OF
swamp where you founder knee deep
along paths of Shiny, washy, evil smell
ing mud, winding between high walls
of tangled weeds that grow out of
black, fostering water; foul noisome,
unhealthy marshes, yet interesting In a
way as a type of nature in one of her
primitive CARDS. You cross lonely riv-
ers fording them breast deep at the
head of your men, feeling your way
with pole, half carried off your feet
by the swirling current, stumbling
awkwardly over loose stones, sinking
into spongy mud and wondering doubt
fully If there are any crocodiles near.
Or If the water be too deep to ford you
use a native made bridge, constructed
by partially telling two trees on oppo-
site banks so that their branches inter-
lace across the water.
Sometimes you pass a stretch of open
parklike country with gently rolling
grassy slopes, dotted with shady groves
in whose boughs hosts Of wild pigeons
flutter and COO, and watered by quiet
streams flowing between banks where
the long sweeping branches OF graceful
trees rise out of clustering masses of
light green jungle foliage, and some
times, as you come over a rise, you
light suddenly on the bleaming waters
of some reed frlnged lake, hidden away
amid lonely hills. From the green
swamps you hear the hoarse grunts of
the hippopotamus, crocodiles are lying
like dead logs, basklng in the sun by
the edge of the shore, the water is dot
ted with wild fowl, on the sandbanks
there Is brilliant sheet Of dazzling
white and pink from the plumage Of
packed armies Of flan1ingoes, and over
the scene there broods mysterious air
of primitive slitude and alfness,
Then you skirt dense forests where
the ground discovered with a tossing
welter Of uxuriant underground, the
tendrils and creepers twining and in
tertwining between bushes and plants,
swarming thickly up the trunks of the
trees, falling again in cascades OF sway
ling streaners and lacing one tree to the
next till there is an inpenetrable mass
of matted boughse and foliage, while
above the spreading branches of the
mighty forest trees weave canopy SO
thick that even at MONDAY there Is dim
twilight In the leafy caverns beneath.
| mt. .lot,r ~ ito n
to be seen are really astonishing.
Beasts large and small, harmless and
dangerous, all living amid their natural
surroundings, as they have lived for
centuries, in unfettered freedom-to
any one with d love of natural history
they are an unfailing source OF interest
and pleasure. You see a broad plain.
thickly dotted with antelope and ga
zele; some are heavy and ungainly in
form; Others there are with light deli
cate limbs and daintily poised necks
supporting prettily curved horns; and
all, with the bright sunlight picking out
the tints Of their coats against the duh
hues of the grass, give life and move
ment to the loneliness and monotony Of
the cuntry.
Sometimes the beasts are found sim
gly or In small groups; more often
there is large herd with willy old
buck stalking arrogantly among them,
seemingly cunning enough to know
that he possesses the most valuable
horns, and taking the lead IN swift re-
treat at the first warning Of danger.
Magnificent is the sight when o herd
of graceful animals, like the tmpela,
scents danger; a quick startled jerk of
the head few terrible bounds, and
then the whole herd ushes heter-skel-
ter over the plain, a flying jumbed
mass Of 1.-THE leaping bodies the en-
bodlment of easy grace and activity,
It is an endless source of interest to
watch for and pick out the different
varieties, to recognize each typ eby its
characteristic features Of horns and
skin, to mark small differences, to
watch the beasts in their natural state,
and to observe their movements, hab-
Its and instincts, till you learn to know
them all as old friends, from the bull
like Gland with heavy spiral twisted
horns, and big wildheest with shaggy
head and twitching tail, to the graceful
gazelle with daintily marked coat Of
fawn and white, and the pretty little
dil5-dik, hardly larger than a young
goat.
Then there are the large herds OF re-
bra, their beautiful striped skins glls-
tepipp Al, the sunlight. the troons a. "a II