It was the season for wild life to be abroad. Game, and tracks of game, were abundant. Damas Gazelle were seen in picturesque herds, their white sides and rumps showing in the bush like silver on a cloth of green, while the more sedately coloured Red-fronted Gazelle and Dorcas Gazelle, in small parties or pairs, were passed at almost every turning on the trail. Ostriches, great birds that never seem to rest, were sometimes sighted far off, passing on their journey of the day, picking a morsel here and there, but never ceasing in their onward march. Giraffe was seen only once, but on a number of occasions their fresh tracks were crossed. These were left unfollowed, as a specimen of the species was not wanted. After those brief days of torrential rain-bursts all tracks in the tell-tale sand told that the game were moving out northward as the growth of fresh vegetation advanced. My caravan followed the same course. On the outer bush-edge those beautiful antelope, the White Oryx, were encountered, and small bands of cattle-like Addax: animals that appear almost equally white at a distance, until the black forehead and dark-marked limbs of the latter can be discerned. Both are adorned with magnificent heads of horns, three feet to three feet six inches in length, or thereabouts. These animals are given to restless roaming across open plains of sand, feeding chiefly on scant grass-tufts, where there is little cover, except an odd acacia, solitary or in a straggling group, and the sentinel-like _Jiga_, which is the choice tree of the solitudes, and the favoured shade of game. It is under such scattered, dwarf-sized trees that Oryx and Addax are in the habit of resting when the sun is at its height; and it was then that I had a chance to get within rifle-shot, by manœuvring to utilise any slight dip in the land, and by crawling or sprawling long distances flatwise on my “tummy.” By reason of the extreme openness of the country it was stalking of a high order, and hence nerve-exciting and engrossing. Specimens for the museum were wanted, and, although I lost most of the skin from my knees owing to the cutting nature of the hot, sharp sand, I had one or two glorious hunts that ended successfully, and made ample compensation. [Illustration: DORCAS GAZELLE] White Oryx are killed locally on occasion, by the few Tuaregs and Beri-Beri who roam the region. They ride them down on horseback in the following manner.