Zebra Spotting
After following the Gombe’s course for about a mile, delighting my eyes with long looks at the broad and lengthy reaches of water, to which I was so long a stranger, I came upon a scene which delighted the innermost recesses of my soul: five, six, seven, eight, ten zebras switching their beautiful striped bodies, and biting one another, within about one hundred and fifty yards.
The scene was so pretty, so romantic, never did I so thoroughly realize that I was in Central Africa. I felt momentarily proud that I owned such a vast dominion, inhabited by such noble beasts. Here I possessed, within reach of a leaden ball, any one I chose of the beautiful animals, the pride of the African forests. It was at my option to shoot any one of them. Mine they were, without money and without price; yet, knowing this, twice I dropped my rifle, loath to wound the royal beasts, but - crack! and a royal one was on his back, battling the air with his legs. Ah, it was such a pity! But hasten, draw the keen, sharp-edged knife across the beautiful stripes which fold around the throat, and - what an ugly gash! it is done, and I have a superb animal at my feet. Hurrah! I shall taste of Ukonongo zebra to-night.
H.M.S
