100 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



About an hour after dark, the boy who looked 

 after my horses stretched one of the eland hides 

 on the ground behind the waggon, and then pouring 

 a large pot full of half-boiled maize upon it, spread 

 it out to cool before putting it into the horses' 

 nosebags for their evening feed. At this time 

 my whole camp was lighted up by the blazing 

 fires the natives had lit all along one side of the 

 enclosure, and of course within the hedge. Every 

 one was happy, with plenty of fat meat to eat and 

 beer to drink, and the whole crowd kept up an 

 incessant babble of talk and laughter, as only happy 

 Africans can. 



I was quite alone, as I had been for months, 

 with these good-tempered primitive people, and I 

 may here say that I went to sleep every night in 

 their midst, and always completely in their power 

 (as I had not a single armed follower with me), 

 feeling as absolutely safe, as indeed I was, as if I 

 had been in an hotel in London. 



I had just finished my evening meal, and was 

 sitting by the fire that had been lighted at the foot 

 of my bed of dry grass, when I saw a big hysena 

 burst through the lightly made hedge of boughs 

 on the other side of the waggon and advance 

 boldly into the centre of the enclosure, where he 

 stood for a moment looking about him, plainly visible 

 to every one in the bright light cast by twenty fires. 

 The next moment he advanced to where the eland 

 skin lay spread upon the ground behind the waggon, 

 and seizing it, dashed back with it through the 

 fence and disappeared into the darkness of the 

 night. 



I had several large dogs with me on this trip, 

 which were all lying near the fires when the hyaena 

 entered the encampment from the other side, but 

 as the latter had come up against the wind, they had 

 not smelt him. When, however, he appeared within 



