Sudan Archive

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WITH THE BIG-GAME HUNTERS It costs fifty dollars to get a permit to kill or capture a giraffe and the hunter is allowed only one a year. A traveller’s license, available for a month, costs five dollars and gives the right to kill or capture four zebra and not over five antelopes out of eight named varieties. Animals killed on private land on either the traveller’s or sports¬ man’s license do not count in the total authorized. A register must be kept of all kills or captures under license. As for leopards and crocodiles, no permit is required to shoot them.

There is such a great variety of game that there is no need of chasing over the swamps or tramping about over the plains for days before one gets a shot. One sees a dozen different kinds of beasts on the plains at the same time, and can change his sport from day to day. The sportsman will find antelopes almost everywhere and will not infrequently be in sight of an ostrich or so. These birds are big game and are hunted largely on ponies. They are very speedy, and, however it may be elsewhere, here they do not poke their heads down in the sand and wait for the hunter to come. On the other hand, they spread out their wings and go off on the trot, swimming, as it were, over the ground. They can run faster than a horse, but they actually run in large circles and the hunters catch them by cutting across the arcs of the circles or running around in smaller circles inside. It is a great thing here to shoot a cock ostrich in order that you may give your sweetheart or wife the beautiful white feathers from his wings.

And then there is the zebra! His black and white stripes shine out so plainly in the brilliant sun that he is to be seen by the thousand on the Athi plains, and not far from the 271

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