which direction we had just come, were high, rounded mountains. At
sunrise they cut clear in an outline of milky slate against the sky.

The floor of this ellipse was surfaced in gentle undulations, like the
low swells of a summer sea. Between each swell a singing, clear-watered
brook leapt and dashed or loitered through its jungle. Into the
mountains ran broad upward-flung valleys of green grass; and groves of
great forest trees marched down canons and out a short distance into the
plains. Everything was fresh and green and cool. We needed blankets at
night, and each morning the dew was cool and sparkling, and the sky very
blue. Underneath the forest trees of the stream beds and the canon were
leafy rooms as small as a closet, or great as cathedral aisles. And in
the short brush dwelt rhinoceros and impalla; in the jungles were
buffalo and elephant; on the plains we saw giraffe, hartebeeste, zebra,
duiker; and in the bases of the hills we heard at evening and early
morning the roaring of lions.

In this charming spot we lingered eight days. Memba Sasa and I spent
most of our time trying to get one of the jungle-dwelling buffalo
without his getting us. In this we were finally successful.[26] Then, as
it was about time for C. to return, we moved back to V.'s boma on the
Narossara; relaying, as usual, the carrying of our effects. At this time
I had had to lay off three more men on account of various sorts of
illness, so was still more cramped for transportation facilities. As we
were breaking camp a lioness leaped to her feet from where she had been
lying under a bush. So near was it to camp that I had not my rifle
ready. She must have been lying there within two hundred yards of our
tents, watching all our activities.

We drew into V.'s boma a little after two o'clock. The man in charge of
our tent did not put in an appearance until next day. Fortunately V. had
an extra tent, which he lent us. We camped near the river, just outside
the edge of the river forest. The big trees sent their branches out over
us very far above, while a winding path led us to the banks of the river
where was a dingle like an inner room. After dark we sat with V. at our
little camp fire. It was all very beautiful--the skyful of tropical
stars, the silhouette of the forest shutting them out, the velvet
blackness of the jungle flickering with fireflies, the purer outlines of
the hilltops and distant mountains to the left, the porters' tiny fires