Towards evening we reached our old camp of July 31st, and on arrival we immediately sent men back to try to discover if there were any signs of another safari in the neighbourhood. One of the men also was missing, together with his rifle and a valuable load of cloth. We thought that he might have sat down to rest and fallen asleep, and let the safari pass on, so we sent Jumbi up the summit of a lofty hill near the camp, with a gamekeeper’s flare which burnt for five minutes with a brilliant blue light, and would be visible in that clear atmosphere and at that height for several miles. As he did not turn up that night or the next morning in spite of the most diligent search by the parties of men we sent out, we concluded that he had deserted and gone back to M’thara. The other men whom we had sent to look for and report on the possible presence of another safari in the neighbourhood returned, stating that they had seen no signs of a safari whatever. We questioned the men as to whether any of them had fired the shot, but they each and all denied it; besides, the shot had seemed to come from the front. It was a mystery which we never solved. Next morning I left camp half an hour before the safari, in order to try to shoot some meat before the caravan, with its varied noises, frightened the game away. A mile or so out of camp I saw a solitary oryx (_Oryx beisa_) feeding in the open. There was no cover, and the need was urgent, so I sank my scruples about shooting at a long range, and crawling to just within two hundred yards I let drive at it with the ·303. My bullet struck it in the ribs, but failed to knock the beast over. A second shot clean through the shoulder did the business, however. I waited till the safari came up with me, and joined them. The flesh of the oryx is tough and tasteless, and when dried the hide is extraordinarily hard, and as stiff as a board. At the end of a two and a half hours’ march we reached the camp at which we had such a narrow escape from destruction by fire on July 30th. It was now completely burnt out, having evidently caught fire again after our departure. The fire had spread very much, the palms for over two miles along the bank being reduced to a collection of mere blackened poles, in many places still smouldering. Camping was out of the question, so we went on again for another hour and a half. As we were crossing a small sand river which ran across our path, a herd of water-buck dashed out from among the palms forty yards ahead, racing across our front in fine style. It was a chance not to be missed, and raising my ·303 I took a snapshot and brought one down with a bullet through the shoulder. Two or three hundred yards further on I unexpectedly came upon a small herd of grantei, and another lucky shot laid low a fine buck; not at all a bad morning’s work in a district so devoid of game as that through which we were passing.