ends, and Moto was of the
opinion that after a stomachful of good meat he might also, if hard
pressed, do damage to either a leopard or a lion. Selim, following
suit, suggested that he, being but a boy, ought to have his English gun
in his hand before he could be expected to fight a lion or a leopard;
while Abdullah and Niani gravely expressed their fears that if they met
either of those beasts of prey they would think of climbing some tall
tree before doing anything else.

Kalulu, after skinning the leopard, proceeded to spread the hide out on
a piece of spongy sward for the sun to dry it, putting a number of small
pegs around to stretch it. The leopard, being denuded of his splendid
dress, was not so much an object of fear to little Niani as it had been;
it was no more fearful than a skinned dog would have been, though the
canine teeth still looked formidable. But knowing the injury it had
caused Simba during life, he could not help seizing the broken
spear-shaft, and belabouring the dead brute with it in a vicious manner,
which no doubt the leopard would have resented, could he have felt the
blows showered on him. Having taken his fill of this mild revenge,
Niani seized it by the tail and dragged it far out of sight.

The valley wherein these adventures occurred would have been deemed by
our friends exceedingly pretty at any other season, but almost every
other moment the wind drifted great dense masses of rain-cloud across
its face, which completely blurred its beauty, and added more volume to
the streams that constantly poured down the slopes from above.

Safe, however, for the time under their shed, they could contemplate
their little annoyances with liberal philosophy, and could readily adapt
themselves to the circumstances without great sacrifice of comfort.

Simba was too sore to move for two days, but on the third day they broke
their miniature encampment, and continued their journey through the
mountains in a direction nearly north-west.

Tropical mountains are always grand, but during the rainy season their
grandeur is enhanced. Why? Because wherever you turn your eyes you see
some pinnacle, or crag, or summit buried in the angry clouds, which are
a dirty grey, and ragged at the edges, but are an impenetrable mass
behind of inky blackness, as if the night had been gathered and
compressed into an enormous black ball ready to be hurled upon the
valleys and plains by some vengeful fury. These black b