Along the edge of that river jungle were many strange and
beautiful affairs. I could slip along among the high clumps of
the thicker bushes in such a manner as to be continually coming
around unexpected bends. Of such maneouvres are surprises made.
The graceful red impalla were here very abundant. I would come on
them, their heads up, their great ears flung forward, their noses
twitching in inquiry of something they suspected but could not
fully sense. When slightly alarmed or suspicious the does always
stood compactly in a herd, while the bucks remained discreetly in
the background, their beautiful, branching, widespread horns
showing over the backs of their harems. The impalla is, in my
opinion, one of the most beautiful and graceful of the African
bucks, a perpetual delight to watch either standing or running.
These beasts are extraordinarily agile, and have a habit of
breaking their ordinary fast run by unexpectedly leaping high in
the air. At a distance they give somewhat the effect of dolphins
at sea, only their leaps are higher and more nearly
perpendicular. Once or twice I have even seen one jump over the
back of another. On another occasion we saw a herd of twenty-five
or thirty cross a road of which, evidently, they were a little
suspicious. We could not find a single hoof mark in the dust!
Generally these beasts frequent thin brush country; but I have
three or four times seen them quite out in the open flat plains,
feeding with the hartebeeste and zebra. They are about the size
of our ordinary deer, are delicately fashioned, and can utter the
most incongruously grotesque of noises by way of calls or
ordinary conversation.

The lack of curiosity, or the lack of gallantry, of the impalla
bucks was, in my experience, quite characteristic. They were