of balance for offhand shooting; but I did my best, and heard the loud
plunk of the hit. The sable made off at a fast though rather awkward
gallop, wheeled for an instant a hundred yards farther on, received
another bullet in the shoulder, and disappeared over the brow of the
hill. We raced over the top to get in another shot, and found him stone
dead.

He was a fine beast, jet-black in coat, with white markings on the face,
red-brown ears, and horns sweeping up and back scimitar fashion. He
stood four feet and six inches at the shoulder, and his horns were the
second best ever shot in British East Africa. This beast has been
described by Heller as a new subspecies, and named Rooseveltii. His
description was based upon an immature buck and a doe shot by Kermit
Roosevelt. The determination of subspecies on so slight evidence seems
to me unscientific in the extreme. While the immature males do exhibit
the general brown tone relied on by Mr. Heller, the mature buck differs
in no essential from the tropical sable. I find the alledged subspecies
is not accepted by European scientists.




XI.

A MARCH ALONG THE COAST.


With a most comfortable feeling that my task was done, that suddenly the
threatening clouds of killing work had been cleared up, I was now
privileged to loaf and invite my soul on this tropical green hilltop