descend until we came to our horses.
Accordingly we stumbled across a mile or so of those round and

rolling stones. Then we found ourselves overlooking a wide flat
or pocket where the streamvalley widened. It extended even as

far as the upward fling of the barrier ranges. Thick scrub
covered it, but erratically, so that here and there were little

openings or thin places. We sat down, manned our trusty prism
glasses, and gave ourselves to the pleasingoccupation of looking

the country over inch by inch.
This is great fun. It is a game a good deal like puzzle pictures.

Re-examination generally develops new and unexpected beasts. We
repeated to each other aloud the results of our scrutiny, always

without removing the glasses from our eyes.
"Oryx, one," said F.; "oryx, two."

"Giraffe," reported B., "and a herd of impalla."
I saw another giraffe, and another oryx, then two rhinoceroses.

The three bearers squatted on their heels behind us, their fierce
eyes staring straight ahead, seeing with the naked eye what we

were finding with six-power glasses.
We turned to descend the hill. In the very centre of the deep

shade of a clump of trees, I saw the gleam of a waterbuck's
horns. While I was telling of this, the beast stepped from his

concealment, trotted a short distance upstream and turned to
climb a little ridge parallel to that by which we were

descending. About halfway up he stopped, staring in our
direction, his head erect, the slight ruff under his neck

standing forward. He was a good four hundred yards away. B., who
wanted him, decided the shot too chancy. He and F. slipped

backward until they had gained the cover of the little ridge,
then hastened down the bed of the ravine. Their purpose was to

follow the course already taken by the waterbuck until they
should have sneaked within better range. In the meantime I and

the gunbearers sat down in full view of the buck. This was to
keep his attention distracted.

We sat there a long time. The buck never moved but continued to
stare at what evidentlypuzzled him. Time passes very slowly in

such circumstances, and it seemed incredible that the beast
should continue much longer to hold his fixed attitude.

Nevertheless B. and F. were working hard. We caught glimpses of
them occasionally" target="_blank" title="ad.偶然地；非经常地">occasionally slipping from bush to bush. Finally B. knelt

and levelled his rifle. At once I turned my glasses on the buck.
Before the sound of the rifle had reached me, I saw him start

convulsively, then make off at the tearing run that indicates a
heart hit. A moment later the crack of the rifle and the dull

plunk of the hitting bullet struck my ear.
We tracked him fifty yards to where he lay dead. He was a fine

trophy, and we at once set the boys to preparing it and taking
the meat. In the meantime we sauntered down to look at the

stream. It was a small rapid affair, but in heavy papyrus, with
sparse trees, and occasionalthickets, and dry hard banks. The

papyrus should make a good lurking place for almost anything; but
the few points of access to the water failed to show many

interesting tracks. Nevertheless we decided to explore a short
distance.

For an hour we walked among high thornbushes, over baking hot
earth. We saw two or three dik-dik and one of the giraffes. At

that time it had become very hot, and the sun was bearing down on
us as with the weight of a heavy hand. The air had the scorching,

blasting quality of an opened furnace door. Our mouths were
getting dry and sticky in that peculiar stage of thirst on which

no luke-warm canteen water in necessarilylimited quantity has
any effect. So we turned back, picked up the men with the

waterbuck, and plodded on down the little stream, or, rather, on
the red-hot dry valley bottom outside the stream's course, to

where the syces were waiting with our horses. We mounted with
great thankfulness. It was now eleven o'clock, and we considered

our day as finished.
The best way for a distance seemed to follow the course of the

tributary stream to its point of junction with our river. We rode
along, rather relaxed in the suffocating heat. F. was nearest the

stream. At one point it freed itself of trees and brush and ran
clear, save for low papyrus, ten feet down below a steep eroded

bank. F. looked over and uttered a startled exclamation. I
spurred my horse forward to see.

Below us, about fifteen yards away, was the carcass of a
waterbuck half hidden in the foot-high grass. A lion and two

lionesses stood upon it, staring up at us with great yellow eyes.
That picture is a very vivid one in my memory, for those were the

first wild lions I had ever seen. My most livelyimpression was
of their unexpected size. They seemed to bulk fully a third

larger than my expectation.
The magnificent beasts stood only long enough to see clearly what

had disturbed them, then turned, and in two bounds had gained the
shelter of the thicket.

Now the habit in Africa is to let your gunbearers carry all your
guns. You yourself stride along hand free. It is an English idea,

and is pretty generally adopted out there by every one, of
whatever nationality. They will explain it to you by saying that

in such a climate a man should do only necessary physical work,
and that a good gunbearer will get a weapon into your hand so

quickly and in so convenient a position that you will lose no
time. I acknowledge the gunbearers are sometimes very skilful at

this, but I do deny that there is no loss of time. The instant of
distracted attention while receiving a weapon, the necessity of

recollecting the nervous correlations after the transfer, very
often mark just the difference between a sure instinctive

snapshot and a lost opportunity. It reasons that the man with the
rifle in his hand reacts instinctively, in one motion, to get his

weapon into play. If the gunbearer has the gun, HE must first
react to pass it up, the master must receive it properly, and

THEN, and not until then, may go on from where the other man
began. As for physical labour in the tropics: if a grown man

cannot without discomfort or evil effects carry an eight-pound
rifle, he is too feeble to go out at all. In a long Western

experience I have learned never to be separated from my weapon;
and I believe the continuance of this habit in Africa saved me a

good number of chances.
At any rate, we all flung ourselves off our horses. I, having my

rifle in my hand, managed to throw a shot after the biggest lion
as he vanished. It was a snap at nothing, and missed. Then in an

opening on the edge a hundred yards away appeared one of the
lionesses. She was trotting slowly, and on her I had time to draw

a hasty aim. At the shot she bounded high in the air, fell,
rolled over, and was up and into the thicket before I had much

more than time to pump up another shell from the magazine. Memba
Sasa in his eagerness got in the way-the first and last time he

ever made a mistake in the field.
By this time the others had got hold of their weapons. We fronted

the blank face of the thicket.
The wounded animal would stand a little waiting. We made a wide

circle to the other side of the stream. There we quickly picked
up the trail of the two uninjured beasts. They had headed

directly over the hill, where we speedily lost all trace of them
on the flint-like surface of the ground. We saw a big pack of

baboons in the only likely direction for a lion to go. Being thus
thrown back on a choice of a hundred other unlikely directions,

we gave up that slim chance and returned to the thicket.
This proved to be a very dense piece of cover. Above the height

of the waist the interlocking branches would absolutely prevent
any progress, but by stooping low we could see dimly among the

simpler main stems to a distance of perhaps fifteen or twenty
feet. This combination at once afforded the wounded lioness

plenty of cover in which to hide, plenty of room in which to
charge home, and placed us under the advantage" target="_blank" title="n.不利(条件)；损失">disadvantage of a crouched

or crawling attitude with limitedvision. We talked the matter
over very thoroughly. There was only one way to get that lioness