THREE WEEKS’ KOODOO STALKING ON GOLIS RANGE, 1893
Our hunting camp in the mountains—The “Rock of the Seven
Robbers”—Exciting koodoo hunt; death of a splendid koodoo—My
shooting costume—Triumphant return to camp—Unsuccessful koodoo
hunt—March to Henweina—Unsuccessful hunt after four bull
koodoos—Bag a fine bull—A charming spot—Dog-faced baboons—Alarm
note of the koodoo cow—Picturesque bivouac—Cedar-trees in
Mirso—A leopard caught with a piece of rope and speared by
the Somális—March to Armáleh Garbadir—The great Massleh
Wein bull—Exciting hunt; success of the Martini; a glorious
koodoo—Return to the coast.
We descended the Jeráto Pass to Mandeira on 4th June. This pass has since
been improved by an engineer officer from Aden, and there is now a good
road. Once caravans had the greatest difficulty in getting up or down
the pass. On this day I divided the men and animals into two caravans,
one-half to remain with me in the mountains, the other half to go to
Berbera, where the men would be paid off and the camels sold.
On the following day I took the half of the caravan which I had chosen
for the koodoo-hunting trip, and marched three miles, from Mandeira
wells to a small spring just under the crest of Gán Libah Mountain,
which is six thousand feet above sea-level. The height of our camp here
was four thousand five hundred feet. In the morning, while the men were
moving camp to the new site, I took my two hunters Géli and Hassan,
and an Esa Musa guide from some karias which we found at Mandeira, and
searched the hills for koodoo, but only saw some female koodoo and young
ones, so we made for camp, which we found pitched in a very pretty little
glade on the hillside. I had no tent, but a small hut made of camel-mats,
covered over with waterproof sheets, and fastened to some poles which
we cut from the thorn bushes. To the east, just below camp, was a rocky
torrent-bed, with stretches of flat sand in the bottom, and a small
stream trickling through it, forming waterfalls of a foot or two in
height, and flowing northwards into the Tug Mandeira. All the country for
a mile or two round was very much broken and cut up by ravines from Gán
Libah and other high mountains overlooking the camp; and in these ravines
were long strips of the _gudá_ jungle, with thick aloe undergrowth four
feet high.
Three miles north-west, on the right bank of the Tug Mandeira sand-river,
rises a very curious pinnacle or boss of hard rock, called Dagaha
Todobálla, or the “Rock of the Seven Robbers” (from _todoba_, seven). The
story goes that seven Jibril Abokr robbers came from the west on one of
their periodical raids, to search for plunder among the Esa Musa flocks
grazing at the foot of the Gólis Range; but the Esa Musa collected in
force, and these men fled to the top of the almost inaccessible rock,
where they were surrounded and finally cut to pieces by the enraged
tribesmen. Rising as it does to a height of about a hundred feet above a
sea of jungle of the large _gudá_ thorn-trees, it forms a very beautiful
addition to Mandeira scenery, which indeed is all very striking. There
are several of these rocks and hillocks in the Mandeira Valley, and
the large thorn jungles round their bases are the home of that lovely
antelope, the lesser koodoo, which combines many of the beauties of both
the large koodoo and the African striped bushbuck, and is midway between
them in size. There are also wart-hog, Waller’s gazelles, the tiny
_Sakáro_, as well as guinea-fowl and large koodoo in the mountains close
by.
On the evening of 5th June I went out again with the same men, holding
south-west along the lower slopes of a ridge called Gol Adéryu, or the
“Hill of Koodoos”; and here I bagged a splendid specimen of a koodoo
bull. When Géli first saw him we were moving along the base of the hills,
crossing several torrent-beds, all more or less hidden under _gudá_
trees, with bare gravelly ridges, or ridges covered with grass and aloe
jungle, forming the watersheds. He was about three hundred yards away
in front of us, standing nibbling the young shoots of the _gudá_ where
a thick mass of this kind of jungle crowned a ridge. The ground where
the koodoo had taken up his position was higher than the low open ridge
on which we had been standing when we saw him; but the wind was blowing
in our faces, and was therefore in our favour. Two small torrent-beds
intervened between us and the game. His body was quite concealed by the
dark green foliage, only the head and shining horns being occasionally
visible as he stretched himself out to reach down a branch, and it was
long before I could make out what Géli was pointing at. But looking
through my field-glass I saw that I had to deal with the bearer of a
splendid pair of horns, the best I had seen, the whitish tips looking a
yard apart, and the evening sun being reflected from the wide spirals.
We sank flat to the ground together where we had stood, and lay, without
daring to move, fearing that some unlucky chance should cause him to come
out of the bush and look towards us. We spoke in whispers, taking many
more precautions than were really necessary at this distance because of
the great size of this particular old bull, and the intense fear I had
of losing him. We lay upon a flat, open piece of gravel about ten yards
square; and so nervous did we become that we dared not creep along the
ground from our respective positions far enough to tear down a branch to
hold before the face, preferring to lie motionless in the open, in full
view, to the chance of a movement catching his eye.
We lay for probably twenty minutes watching him, and we had perfected
all the arrangements for a most difficult stalk, when, with an abrupt
movement, he turned his head towards the north, only the tips of his
horns appearing above the foliage. But they were motionless, and I knew
that he had seen or heard something. I turned my head round slowly to
look at my companions, to see whether they had moved, but they lay as
they had dropped, and no sound above a whisper had been uttered by any of
us.
Suddenly the pair of horns swung round to the south, and the bull’s
shoulders appeared in full view as he gave a great bound forward,
disappeared among the bushes, and emerged galloping his hardest up the
ridge, where the jungle was thin, his tail held erect; next second he had
plunged into a watercourse and disappeared, and a few minutes later we
saw his whole body in the far distance as he made his way heavily up the
steep Gol Adéryu ridge and went down on the other side. We looked blankly
at each other! Of course it was of no use concealing ourselves now, so
we got up and walked to the spot where the koodoo had been standing; and
here, to our disgust, we met three men and two women of the Esa Musa,
who had come from the Mandeira karias to pick gum. They had been walking
along a torrent-bed and had come close up to the koodoo before they
saw him; and one of the Esa Musa had thrown his small spear at him and
missed, sending the koodoo off as we had seen.
We enlisted these people in our service by a promise of meat if
successful, and then we slowly took up the tracks. But we soon lost them
again in the rocky ground, and extending into a line and moving over the
ridge where he had disappeared, we resolved ourselves into couples and
searched independently for further tracks.
We must have spent over an hour doing this, and traversed about a mile of
very steep, stony hills covered with dense thorn bush, with occasional
deep canons and gullies in the limestone, when one of the gum-pickers
ran up and motioned to me to follow him; and scrambling over another
half mile of steep ground we came upon the tracks of a koodoo, which by
their size I concluded to be those of the bull we had lately lost. He had
slowed down into a walk, the tracks leading up to a very high ridge, and
we took them over the top with great caution, hoping that we might come
upon him somewhere in the next valley.
We were soon scrambling along the sides of the valley when Hassan pointed
downwards, and I saw the koodoo rounding a spur a hundred and fifty
yards away, and about a hundred feet below us; and throwing up the rifle
I fired just before he disappeared, the bullet telling loudly, and my
men calling out that he was hit. We got down to where he had been in a
few seconds, and rounding the corner we found him lying in a bush which
had stopped his body as it had rolled down the hill. The .577 bullet,
entering behind the withers, had driven nearly through him, breaking the
spine and killing him almost instantaneously. All the Somális, of course,
began shaking hands with me across the body to show their delight. This
was a splendid old bull, his massive neck being covered with scars
received in fights with his species, scratches from the thorn bushes
through which he had forced his way, and abrasions from the rocks where
he had fallen. The horns measured 34½ inches between tips, 37 inches in a
straight line from base to tip, and 49 inches round the spiral.
It was getting late, and a heavy thunder-storm was coming up from the
south,—always a disagreeable experience in these hills, and especially
so in this instance, because I had nothing on but a thin vest, a pair of
_khaki_ drill breeches, and red rubber tennis shoes with long stockings,
the day having been too hot for climbing steep hills in a coat.
It became intensely cold as the sun set and the rain poured down, so
employing all our knives we soon whipped off the skin of the koodoo, and
I threw it over my shivering shoulders like a shawl, hair inside. The
Somalis had their tobes. We cut off the grand head, taking care to leave
plenty of the skin of the neck and beard; and each of us being loaded
with head, meat, or rifles, made our way over the hills back to camp,
arriving an hour after dark; Hassan, who had pointed me out the koodoo,
being privileged to sing the hunting-song as we approached the camp fire.
During the next six days I went after koodoo morning and evening without
success, sometimes going up into the mountains before dawn and not
returning till after nightfall, and shifting camp from one watering-place
to another.
On the sixth day I had a long hunt after a koodoo with fine horns,
which we had got news of in Harka-weina in the Henweina valley; we saw
the koodoo across a gorge, and after making a long détour to get into
a favourable position for a stalk, we found that he had mysteriously
disappeared.
On the same evening we marched five miles across the Henweina valley,
and made our bivouac at the karia of one Waiss Mahomed, of the Adan
Esa, Esa Musa, Habr Awal. The people here were very kind and attentive
to me, bringing me willingly goats, sheep, and milk to buy whenever I
wanted supplies. The camp was pitched among large, flat-topped _gudá_
thorn-trees hung with thick masses of _armo_ creeper, which forms a deep
and cool shade, and has a light green, heart-shaped leaf, thick and
rubber-like and full of sap. At a distance of a mile on every side of
the camp were the foothills of Gólis Range. The spot was pleasant, and
I resolved to make a halt of several days here, looking for koodoo and
making up the bundles of specimens ready to be enclosed in boxes when I
arrived at Aden, and sent to Mr. Rowland Ward in London. This halt was
a great rest for the men after the incessant marching of the last four
months, and they thoroughly enjoyed it.
On 12th June I sent out two parties to look for koodoo, and waited in
camp till 10 A.M. for news from these men, or from the Esa Musa cowboys
who were herding cattle on the mountains. A herd-boy brought in news
that he had seen four bull koodoos together on the top of a mountain,
about three miles away, and fifteen hundred feet above camp. After a very
toilsome climb, the day being exceptionally hot, the herd-boy led us to a
saddle in the hills where he had last seen the four bulls; and as he took
us with the wind by mistake, we only heard the rattle of stones as the
game galloped away; we found their tracks, but never came up with them.
Much disappointed, we descended by the most stony goat-track which I
remember to have traversed at any time, and we arrived in camp very much
done up.
I had just thrown myself on my camel-mats to rest when Géli and Hassan
came in triumphantly with news of another bull in the opposite direction,
about two miles away, and not more than five hundred feet above our camp.
They had seen him quietly walking over the top of a hill, picking here
and there at the bushes, and without waiting to find out where he had
gone, they had rushed to camp to see whether I had returned from the
other four bulls. I thought no more of rest, and trotted up the valley
with my men, by sheep-paths winding through the thick undergrowth of
aloes, and gained the base of the hill where the koodoo had been seen.
There was not much time to be lost in searching for his tracks, as it
was now half-past five, and the sun was nearly setting; so having lost
them on stony ground near where he had last been seen, we all went in
different directions to search, Géli and Hassan running about on top of
the hill, and I waiting below under a screen of _armo_ creeper which hung
from a _gudá_ thorn-tree. After a long wait Géli and Hassan could be seen
coming cautiously towards me down a spur of the hill close to a deep,
densely-wooded little ravine, which ran down parallel to the spur on my
left. Gaining the level of the valley, and creeping from one thicket
to another between the aloes, they at length reached me and pointed to
a dense clump of bushes which grew half-way up the ravine, two hundred
feet above me. We made a circuitous stalk by a long detour to the right,
and so round the top of the hill on the farther side, and down over the
head of the ravine; but this took so long that when we stalked in on the
clump of bushes from above, the koodoo was no longer there, the tracks
showing that he had grazed away down the hill; the bottom of this was now
concealed from us by the curve of the steep ground and by the high grass,
bushes, and rocks.
As we looked down the ravine we saw that to our right the valley fell
from the level of my former watching-place into a V-shaped gorge, running
off at right angles to the ravine. Creeping round the shoulder of the
hill to the right, so as to be just above this gorge, we descended yard
by yard, placing each foot carefully on the rocks and undergrowth so as
to avoid making the slightest sound. The wind was in our faces as we
advanced, and whenever I could get a piece of rock large enough to stand
upon, and see over the high _durr_ grass below, I slowly raised myself
to an erect position, expecting to see the koodoo and get a shot. This
manœuvre had been repeated three times, cautiously, so that no sound
or brusque movement on our parts should attract the attention of the
koodoo, if he should by any chance be in the gorge below.
As we gained the fourth group of rocks we heard the rattle of stones and
crash of bushes, and saw, from behind, the horns of the koodoo rising and
falling amongst the tufts of grass as he plunged down into the gorge.
He paused before reaching the bottom, and we were having a whispered
argument whether two objects showing motionless above the grass were
the tips of his horns or spears of aloe, when they moved, and he went
crashing on again.
Knowing he would have to ascend the opposite side of the V-shaped gorge,
as the bushes and aloes were too thick for him to go fast along the
bottom of the V to right or left, I jumped on to the rock and waited;
springing across, he cantered clumsily up the other side, which was very
steep. The distance was two hundred yards across the gorge, and taking a
full sight I held the rifle for the withers and pulled the trigger. He
fell back among the rocks and bushes, and though still breathing he was
practically dead; but to prevent his moving and damaging his beautiful
horns by rolling among the boulders, I gave him another shot. The horns
measured 50 inches round the curve, 35½ inches in a straight line from
base to tip, and 26½ inches between tips.
On 13th June I took a camel and a few necessaries for spending the night
away from camp; and after looking for koodoo all day we arrived at a
lovely little burn half buried in reeds, at the base of Banyéro Mountain,
which is between six thousand and six thousand five hundred feet high.
This was a charming spot, a clear stream flowing over boulders of many
colours, there being occasionally narrow stretches of red sand, on which
were imprinted the fresh tracks of koodoo and lion. Above, on the side
of Banyéro Mountain, was a precipice two hundred feet or so in height,
and on the smooth, perpendicular face of this were a number of holes and
cracks leading into the rock, each tenanted by a group of gray-maned,
dog-faced baboons, their long tails hanging down perpendicularly against
the precipice. The crowded clusters of baboons, of a blue-gray colour,
constantly moving their heads, tails, or legs, and chattering at us,
formed a curious and lively picture against the brick-red face of the
rock. There must have been three hundred altogether, including the little
ones, which clung to the rocks or to their mothers’ backs; and with all
heads looking at us, they kept up a tremendous barking as we crossed the
stream, and it continued all night close to our bivouac, so that it was a
long time before we were able to get any sleep. Some of the males seemed
as large as retriever dogs, with gray manes as imposing as that of the
lion.
Next morning we had to pass these baboons as we ascended a gorge to watch
for koodoo, and they ran round to the head of the gully in a small army,
like little men determined to block our passage. They hid in the rocks
across our path, chattering at us as we came on, and when we were fifty
yards away they still sat ferociously watching us. One gray old fellow
had his head looking over a stone, and pointing my Martini-Henry at it,
I was amused to see him duck behind a rock exactly as a man would have
done. I again raised the rifle and down went his head again. This was
curious, for he had certainly never seen a rifle before. My men stormed
the pass, intent on catching a young one, but they were too quick for us,
and retired slowly up the ravine, disputing with their short angry bark
every inch of the ground. Of course I did not fire at the human-looking
brutes; and the Somális, approving, said that they were little men, and
it was unlucky to kill them.
In the forenoon we saw three cow koodoos and a young bull with half-grown
horns, grazing up a patch of green meadow grass in a valley several
hundred feet below us; but after watching them for an hour, and seeing
that no old bull joined them, we gave it up for the day, and prepared for
the long journey back to the main camp. As we descended to our bivouac
to pack up our blankets and cooking-pots, we gave these koodoos a slant
of our wind, and one of the females stood pawing the ground and looking
up at us, both of the huge rounded ears held forward. We did not move,
and every minute or so she emitted a loud bark which went echoing up the
hillsides.
This alarm-note is given by an old cow when she scents or sees danger,
but cannot quite make out its nature, and so she calls the attention of
the herd. Sometimes three or four females on hearing the bark of one
will throw up their heads, and joining her will stand motionless, all
eyes turned to the direction of danger, as if in council, and then they
canter away, followed by the ruck of the herd. By remaining motionless,
even if on the bare hillside, you may keep up this performance for any
length of time; but once you move, having made you out, off they go. More
than once I have been first warned of the presence of koodoo in a valley
below me by the loud echoing bark coming across to me from half a mile
away, and arresting ourselves as if turned to stone, we have searched the
opposite slopes, and have at last made out three or four brown bodies,
standing under the shade of an overhanging precipice, in colour so like
the background that we should never have seen them but for that warning
bark. The old doe is usually a splendid sentry, but often she betrays the
herd in this way.
On the 14th we came back to our former bivouac at the reed-margined
spring, hoping to see the herd again in the morning, perhaps accompanied
by an old bull. We arrived late, and found the baboons again in force. We
lit fires and threw ourselves down under a fig-tree for the night. This
was a very picturesque night camp. The stream was just below us, giving
out a murmuring of running water which was refreshing after the hot march
of the day. An hour after the sun had gone down a crescent moon rose in
the east, and just disappearing in the west, following the sun, blazing
in the clear mountain air, was the _Hedig wa Galab_, or evening star.
The two goats which I had brought to supply milk for my morning coffee
were standing against each other, head to tail, between the two fires,
trying to keep warm in spite of a current of air which blew down from
the higher gorges of Banyéro, where the mist hung very white, shreds of
it clinging to the side ravines and round the shoulders of the mountain.
Between the fires, and around the goats, lay coiled the four natives.
The camel sat alone, a little farther out, chewing the cud with regular
cadence of sound and gazing into the darkness, its large eyes reflecting
the firelight. The baboons kept up their barking all night as on the
former occasion, and next morning were seen crossing the top of an
adjacent cliff, inspecting our camp.
The next day we hunted for koodoo all the morning, but only once more
saw the same family of cows with the half-grown bull; so we made for the
Henweina camp, and arrived in the afternoon, very thirsty. Géli, while
taking care of my water-bottle, smashed it against a projecting rock,
losing the day’s supply.
This march home was twice as long as it need have been; for, anxious to
visit the higher parts of Banyéro, I had ascended a thousand feet to the
Mirso ledge, and walking for several miles between splendid specimens
of the mountain cedar, I had again descended into the Henweina Valley
near the main camp, by a sheep track which we hit upon, hitherto unknown
to the guides. I continued unsuccessful during the next few days, going
many a “wild-goose chase” after some bull which some one had seen, and
when away after this, a splendid chance in another direction would be
lost through my being out of camp. What sometimes occurred was that three
shepherds would see a koodoo while out in the early morning tending
sheep, and leaving one of their number to mind the sheep and to watch
the koodoo at the same time, the other two would run down to camp, over
four miles of mountain and valley, to bring me the news. By the time
I had arrived at the spot, perhaps some hours afterwards, the man who
had been left to watch would either be asleep or would have moved with
his sheep to another pasture; and while we looked for the koodoo in the
absence of a guide, it would catch sight of us and steal away. I think I
never worked harder than at this period in the search for koodoo, but was
continually disappointed, often going three expeditions during the day,
and climbing many thousands of feet.
One day we heard a fine leopard coughing, as leopards do, among the
hills, and I spent the day looking for his cave. Arriving home after
dark, the first object which I saw on approaching the camp fire was the
spotted body, with a framing of natives, who had just brought him over
from the Esa Musa karia quite close to us. The elders, having lost a goat
the night before, had on this evening tied one up as a bait, and had
prepared a running noose of camel-rope in the brushwood of the zeríba
through which he must pass to get to the goat. Having sauntered boldly
down from the hills in the evening for another goat, as had been his
custom, he charged recklessly and got himself noosed, when the Somális,
who had been waiting in ambush, closed round and speared him. The body
was scarcely cold when I bought it of old Waiss Mahomed, the patriarch of
the karia, for twelve rupees.
The koodoos seemed to have left this neighbourhood. I had heard a good
deal in Henweina about a mysterious bull koodoo living in the high
Massleh Wein gully, overlooking Garbadir, fifteen miles to the east along
the foot of Gólis, if one went round by the camel path, or nine miles
up and down, if one took a short cut over the mountains. He was known
to have remained in Massleh Wein, drinking nightly at the spring below,
for three years. He was reported to be very old and cunning, to carry
enormous horns, and to be lame in one foot. He had been seen by a great
many shepherds in the same place, but had always at once disappeared in
the mists which filled these gorges in the early morning; and the clump
of cedar-trees, amongst which he was always found, being on the spur
between the bifurcation of two branches of the Massleh gully, he had from
his lair a view in every direction.
Having resolved to try conclusions with this bull, I sent my caravan
round the base of a peaked mountain called Hambeileh Weina, by a good
camel track, with orders to the men in charge to make two marches to
Garbadir, and camp at Armáleh water. Armáleh to the east and Massleh to
the west were two of several valleys which joined to form the district
called Garbadir. The grazing grounds of Garbadir, filling a semicircle
of about six miles’ radius, formed a bay in Gólis Range, under Daar Ass
Bluff, which is about six thousand five hundred feet above the sea.
Garbadir was beautifully wooded with very large _gudá_ thorn forest,
plenty of grass growing in the glades, and the ground was covered with
fresh tracks of the Esa Musa flocks. It was at Armáleh Garbadir that I
had formed my first shooting camp in 1885.
From my Henweina camp into Garbadir there was a short cut over the
mountains which was impassable for camels, and this path I took with my
two gunbearers and an Esa Musa guide, ascending and descending about a
thousand feet over the neck between the Hambeileh Weina pointed peak and
the top of Daar Ass. At a height of about five thousand feet above the
sea we found several Esa Musa cattle karias, perched on the mountains,
with splendid flat stretches of open green pasture. The Esa Musa herds
showed me the tracks of a very large koodoo, which I knew to be those of
a well-known bull which I had hunted once or twice during the last few
days, and which we had called the Darei-Hosei koodoo, after the name of
the gully in which he was generally seen by the shepherds in the early
mornings; but as he had passed by at dawn, several hours before, I held
on for the Armáleh camp, leaving Massleh Valley two miles behind us on my
right.
I resolved not to disturb Massleh gorge till we should hear news of the
well-known Massleh koodoo. Arriving at Armáleh a little after noon, I
sent some Esa Musa shepherds up to Massleh with orders to sit on points
of vantage and watch the gorge for the appearance of the koodoo when he
should get up from his sleep in the afternoon; and if they should see
him, to run and let me know; meanwhile I sat down and waited for the
caravan to come round by the long road.
At about four o’clock, acting on the information of an old woman who was
collecting firewood, I went after pig, and came to the Massleh water;
we here found several women and girls filling their bark water-vessels
preparatory to carrying them on their backs to their huts; and they told
us they had just seen a large wart-hog boar come to drink, and then run
away again without drinking. Following on the tracks, we came suddenly on
him twenty yards away on the top of a rise in a goat path, and I raised
my rifle and covered his shoulder; but finding I could not see his tusks,
and as I never shoot a boar unless they are abnormally large, I let him
off. He walked round the bend of the path and I followed, but coming to
the corner we found he had managed to go quietly away without leaving a
track to show his whereabouts.
My gunbearer said he must be a _shaitan_, or devil, and we were just
preparing to drink and go home when two Esa Musa ran up to say they had
seen the lame koodoo of Massleh Wein, and they could show him to me at
once! This was great luck! We started off at a trot up the Lower Massleh
Valley, and came to where there was a stretch of about half a mile,
before it branched out in the form of a Y into two gorges running up
steeply into Daar Ass Mountain. The natives had just seen him coming
out of the mass of jungle which filled the point of junction of the two
gorges where they joined to form the main valley, or stalk of the Y,
lower down.
Géli and I, keeping to the right, ascended the side of the valley and
sat down under the shade of a black poison-bush on a pile of rocks,
commanding the nearest of the two small gorges above the junction, that
is, the western one; while I stopped the eastern gorge by sending an Esa
Musa across to its head, to drive back the koodoo should he attempt to
retreat up it. We knew he was somewhere in the jungle below the junction
of the gorges, and I had ordered Hassan and the other Esa Musa to sit
under cover down in the lower valley long enough to give us all time to
take up our appointed positions; and then, when they saw us posted, to
walk slowly up through the jungle, looking for the fresh tracks.
I had been sitting some twenty minutes at my post, when Hassan and the
Esa Musa shouted across from the jungle to the men at the head of the
eastern gorge to look out, and we saw the koodoo, the finest I have
ever set eyes on, go cantering heavily upwards along the bank of the
torrent-bed which occupied the centre of the eastern gorge. The men whom
I had posted there shouted back, and the koodoo, as I expected, made for
the western gorge which was commanded by my rifle.
On the opposite side of this gully, on a level with the bush under which
I was sitting, was a very large _gudá_ tree, and the range to this tree I
judged to be about two hundred yards across the gorge. If I allowed him
to pass this tree I knew that my chances of bagging him would become very
slender, as the gorge widened, and there was a way by which he could get
out of it, over a shoulder of the mountain, without again coming within
range.
It became very exciting listening to the shouts from the jungle below
and the answering shouts from the other gorge, and more so as, warned by
the rattle of displaced stones and the crashing of bushes, I turned my
eyes and saw the koodoo at the point of intersection of the two gorges,
and heading straight for the one which I commanded. I had in my hands a
long military Martini-Henry, and pushing forward the sliding-leaf to
two hundred yards I marked the _gudá_ tree opposite and watched. There
was suspense for a moment or two, and then with another crash he emerged
from the jungle and galloped along the opposite hillside, straight for
the _gudá_ tree. I held for the front of his shoulder, just clear of
his body, and as he neared the tree I fired. Looking under the smoke
I observed him still galloping on, and felt in my pocket for another
cartridge; but after passing the tree he suddenly plunged forward and
went rolling over and over down the hill, till his body was arrested
about thirty feet below by a bush, and then he lay motionless. We made
very short time across the rocky gorge, and coming up I found him dead,
the Martini picket having passed through his heart—a wonderfully lucky
shot at the distance.
[Illustration: Rock Rabbits]
He was a splendid sight as he lay extended on the remains of the bush
into which he had crashed, his horns measuring 52 inches and 53 inches
respectively round the curve, and 3 feet 1 inch in a straight line from
base to tip, and 37 inches between tips; and his massive neck was adorned
with a fine white and brown beard. There was a slight malformation in the
hoof of his right foreleg which accounted for his lameness, but did not
much interfere with his speed when galloping.
We carried his head back to camp in the dusk, leaving three men to skin
him; and we sent back all the Esa Musa, whom we could collect in the
valley below on our way to camp, telling them to go up and scramble for
the meat.
Having now bagged three good bull koodoos in three weeks, which is
about the usual rate of successful and lucky koodoo stalking in these
mountains, and my leave being up, I went in three short marches to
Berbera, and a week later caught a steamer to Aden.
[Illustration: A Herd of Water Antelope]