He put his
ears back and came straight in my direction. This rush I took for a
blind death flurry, and so dodged off to one side, thinking that he
would of course go by me. Not at all! He swung around on the circle too,
and made after me. I could see that his ears were back, eyes blazing,
and his teeth snapping with rage. It was a malicious charge, and, as
such, with due deliberation, I offer it to sportsman's annals. As I had
no more cartridges I ran away as fast as I could go. Although I made
rather better time than ever I had attained to before, it was evident
that the zebra would catch me; and as the brute could paw, bite, and
kick, I did not much care for the situation. Just as he had nearly
reached me, and as I was trying to figure on what kind of a fight I
could put up with a clubbed rifle barrel, he fell dead. To be killed by
a lion is at least a dignified death; but to be mauled by a zebra!

I am sorry I did not try out this heavy-calibred rifle oftener at long
range. It was a marvellously effective weapon at close quarters; but I
have an idea-but only a tentative idea-that above three hundred yards
its velocity is so reduced by air resistance against the big blunt
bullet as greatly to impair its hitting powers.

We generally got back from our walks or rides just before dark to find
the house gleaming with lights, a hot bath ready, and a tray of good
wet drinks next the easy chairs. There, after changing our clothes, we
sipped and read the papers-two months off the press, but fresh arrived
for all that-until a white-robed, dignified figure appeared in the
doorway to inform us that dinner was ready. Our ways were civilized and
soft, then, until the morrow when once again, perhaps, we went forth
into the African wilderness.

Juja is a place of startling contrasts-of naked savages clipping formal
hedges, of windows opening from a perfectly appointed brilliantly
lighted dining-room to a night whence float the lost wails of hyenas or
the deep grumbling of lions, of cushioned luxurious chairs in reach
of many books, but looking out on hills where the game herds feed,
of comfortable beds with fine linen and soft blankets where one lies
listening to the voices of an African night, or the weirder minor house
noises whose origin and nature no man could guess, of tennis courts and
summer houses, of lawns and hammocks, of sundials and clipped hedges
separated only by a few strands of woven wire from fields identical wi