[Photograph: By Courtesy of W.D. Boyce The Lordly Eland]
The meat is the most delicious of any of the large antelopes, and the skin, when properly cared for, is as soft as kid and as brilliant as watered silk. The head is a fine trophy on account of its rich coloring rather than because of its horns, which are not particularly graceful in curve or proportion, but which are wonderfully ridged.
I am sure that if I were a beautiful topi with a skin like watered silk I should be deeply humiliated to be mistaken for a singing sun hat.
The topi's nearest relations are the sasseby, the tiang, and the korrigum. And now you know all about the topi. The game ordinance allows the sportsman to kill two topi, and the holder of a license will work hard to get his two, for they are splendid trophies.
The duiker is another little antelope that one meets frequently in the grassy places of East Africa. It is small, with dark complexion, and goes through the high grass in a way that strongly suggests the diving of a porpoise at sea. In fact, it gets its Dutch name for that reason, _duiker bok_, meaning "diving buck" in Dutch. There are a dozen or more different species of duikers, and they may be found scattered all over South and East Africa. They are difficult to shoot, for their diving habits make them a fleeting target; also their size, about twenty or thirty pounds in weight, makes them a small target.
Quite often the little duiker will hide in the grass until you have almost stepped on him, and then, if he considers discovery inevitable, he will spring away with his little huddled-up back rising and disappearing over the grass exactly as the porpoise does in the water. One day while we were beating some tall grass for lions, one of the porters stepped on a duiker, and its sharp horns, twisting suddenly, cut him on the ankle. The horns of the bucks are short and straight, from four to six inches long, but most often about four and a half inches.
It would take an expert mathematician to keep track of all the different kinds of duikers, for there's the crowned duiker, the yellow-backed duiker, the red duiker, Jentink's duiker, Abbott's duiker, the Ituri red duiker, the black-faced duiker, Alexander's duiker, the Ruddy duiker, Weyn's duiker, Johnston's duiker, Isaac's duiker, Harvey's duiker, Roberts' duiker, Leopold's duiker, the white-bellied duiker, the bay duiker, the chestnut duiker, the white-lipped duiker, Ogilby's duiker, Brooke's duiker, Peter's duiker, the red-flanked duiker, the banded duiker, Walker's duiker, the white-faced duiker, the black duiker, Maxwell's duiker, the black-rumped duiker, the Uganda duiker, the blue duiker, the Nyasa duiker, Heck's duiker, the Urori duiker, Erwin's duiker, and I suppose a lot more that the naturalists have not had time to catalogue.