p the side of the mountain to the spot where the
lions were supposed to be lurking--a long, reed-filled cleft in the side
of the slope. The porters were sent up to one end of the reed bed,
twenty on each side, while we went below to where the lion would
probably be driven out by their shouting and noise. The porters
bombarded the reeds with stones while we waited with rifles ready for
the angry creature to dash out in our vicinity. It was an interesting
wait, with plenty of food for thought. I wondered why the Englishmen had
not come out to get the lions themselves, and then remembered that one
of them had been mauled by a lion and had henceforth remained neutral in
all lion fights. I wondered many other things which I have now
forgotten. I was quite busy wondering for some time as I waited. In the
meantime the lions failed to appear.

Bushbuck, waterbuck, and lots of other herbivora appeared, but no
carnivora. We raked the reed bed fore and aft, and combed the long grass
in every direction. A young rhino was startled in his morning nap, ran
around excitedly for a while, and then trotted off. Birds of many
varieties fluttered up and wondered what the racket was about. At ten
o'clock we decided that the lions had failed to do their part of the
program, and that no further developments were to be expected. So we
marched back homeward, got mixed up with another rhino, and finally
gained camp, seven miles away, just as our hunger had reached an
advanced stage.

The next day we marched to the Thika Thika River, then to Punda Milia,
and then to Fort Hall. Some one claimed to have heard a lion out from
Fort Hall early in the morning, but I more than half suspect it was one
of our porters who reverberates when he sleeps. From Fort Hall we
crossed the Tana and made three marches down the river. Rhinos were
everywhere jumping out from behind bushes when least expected and in
many ways behaving in a most diverting way. For a time we forgot lions
while dodging rhinos. There were dozens of them in the thick, low scrub,
with now and then a bunch of eland, or a herd of waterbuck, or a few
hundred of the ubiquitous kongoni.

We camped in a beautiful spot down on the Tana. The country looked like
a park, with graceful trees scattered about on the rolling lawn-like
hills. On all sides was game in great profusion. Hippos played about in
the river, baboons scampered about on the edge of the water, monkeys
chattered in the trees, and it