own grass rising to a clear cut skyline; and all about us the
distant great hills behind which the day dawned and fell. One afternoon
a herd of giraffes stood silhouetted on this skyline quite a half hour
gazing curiously down on our camp. Hartebeeste and zebra swarmed in
the grassy openings; and impalla in the brush. We saw sing-sing and
steinbuck, and other animals, and heard lions nearly every night. But
principally we elected to stay because a herd of buffaloes ranged the
foothills and dwelt in the groves of forest trees under the cliffs. We
wanted a buffalo; and as Lengeetoto is practically unknown to white men,
we thought this a good chance to get one. In that I reckoned without
the fact that at certain seasons the Masai bring their cattle in, and at
such times annoy the buffalo all they can.

We started out well enough. I sent Memba Sasa with two men to locate the
herd. About three o'clock a messenger came to camp after me. We plunged
through our own jungle, crossed a low swell, traversed another jungle,
and got in touch with the other two men. They reported the buffalo
had entered the thicket a few hundred yards below us. Cautiously
reconnoitering the ground it soon became evident that we would be forced
more definitely to locate the herd. To be sure, they had entered the
stream jungle at a known point, but there could be no telling how far
they might continue in the thicket, nor on what side of it they would
emerge at sundown. Therefore we commenced cautiously and slowly follow
the trail.

The going was very thick, naturally, and we could not see very far
ahead. Our object was not now to try for a bull, but merely to find
where the herd was feeding, in order that we might wait for it to come
out. However, we were brought to a stand, in the middle of a jungle of
green leaves, by the cropping sound of a beast grazing just the other
side of a bush. We could not see it, and we stood stock still in the
hope of escaping discovery ourselves. But an instant later a sudden
crash of wood told us we had been seen. It was near work. The gunbearers
crouched close to me. I held the heavy double gun ready. If the beast
had elected to charge I would have had less than ten yards within which
to stop it. Fortunately it did not do so. But instantly the herd was
afoot and off at full speed. A locomotive amuck in a kindling pile could
have made no more appalling a succession of rending crashes than did
those heavy animals rushing