ing thickly and clumsily built, with a heavy,
ungraceful neck, but the buck is like a painting by Landseer, noble,
graceful, and beautifully marked with white and black on his dark gray
coat.

We didn't kill many waterbuck, because there is no excuse for doing so
except to secure the heads as trophies. The meat is so coarse and tough
that even the porters, who seldom draw the line at eating anything their
teeth can penetrate, do not care for waterbuck meat except under the
stress of great hunger. They do like the skin, however, for it is of the
waterbuck skin that their best sandals are made. Consequently, when a
waterbuck is killed there is a fierce scramble among the porters to
secure portions of the hide for this purpose.

The male waterbucks are savage fighters among themselves, and it was not
uncommon to see big bulls with one horn gone or with both horns badly
broken or marred as a result of the jealous struggle for dominance of a
herd of does.

The topi is something like the hartebeest, but much more beautiful and
much more rare. It is over four feet high, with skin of a dark reddish
brown, with a silklike bluish gray gloss. On the shoulders and thighs
are bluish black patches and the forehead and nose are blackish brown.
The under parts are bright cinnamon. We ran across this beautiful
antelope only on the Guas Ngishu Plateau, although it is found in one or
two other districts in East Africa. In all our weeks of rambling on the
high plains near Mount Elgon I think I saw several hundred head of topi,
always shy and quick to take alarm.

[Photograph: A Uganda Cob]

[Photograph: By Courtesy of W.D. Boyce The Lordly Eland]

The meat is the most delicious of any of the large antelopes, and the
skin, when properly cared for, is as soft as kid and as brilliant as
watered silk. The head is a fine trophy on account of its rich coloring
rather than because of its horns, which are not particularly graceful in
curve or proportion, but which are wonderfully ridged.

[Drawing: _Topi_]

I am sure that if I were a beautiful topi with a skin like watered silk
I should be deeply humiliated to be mistaken for a singing sun hat.

The topi's nearest relations are the sasseby, the tiang, and the
korrigum. And now you know all about the topi. The game ordinance allows
the sportsman to kill two topi, and the holder of a license will work
hard to get his two, for they are splendid trophies.

The duiker is another little ante