The Waterbuck (Swahili name, ‘Kuru’) is common everywhere south of Lake Baringo, near fresh water, and is also found in the vicinity of a good many of the salt-water creeks on the coast. It is particularly plentiful on the banks of the Tana river, and in the Kilimanjaro district on the banks of the Weri Weri. Like most bush-loving antelopes, it is fairly easy to stalk, but is a very tough beast and takes a good deal of killing if not hit in the right place. Its flesh, though much relished by the natives, is coarse and exceedingly rank--indeed that of an old bull is almost uneatable. Near the coast it is generally found in thick bush, unless the sportsman is up very early and out by daylight, when he may find it on its feeding-ground in the open. Up country, where it is less hunted, it is more partial to park-like and open bush country. On the banks of the Weri Weri herds of fifteen to twenty were not uncommon, but the ordinary herd consists of a bull and three or four cows. Single bulls are also constantly met with. The waterbuck is a grass feeder.
The Sing-Sing (also known to the natives as ‘Kuru’) resembles the waterbuck in habits, but is easily distinguished from it by its darker colour, and by a considerable amount of rufous hair on the top of the head, as well as by an entirely white rump in place of the elliptical white band of the other. The horns are also as a rule longer and more massive than those of the waterbuck, the horns of the latter never growing to the size they do in South Africa. It is not met with until near Lake Baringo, and extends west to Uganda, where it was first obtained by Captains Speke and Grant. It is fairly plentiful in the open bush country of Turkwel; but it does not appear to go about in such large herds as the waterbuck. I have never seen more than five or six together, and more often a bull and two or three cows.
The Greater Kudu is a rare beast in East Africa, and is only found in certain places. There are always a few in the Teita country west of Ndara and Kisigao and on the banks of the Tsavo river, down which it ranges from the head-waters to the Sabaki, and then north up the Athi river. All these places are more or less undulating, very rough, dry, and stony, and covered with thick bush.