CHAP. XIV ELEPHANTS AND LIONS 271 



and there was nothing for it but to run. I thought I could 

 easily escape, for the rhinoceros looked such a slow and 

 ungainly beast. I soon found, however, that he could go 

 more quickly than I could, and double like a hare, so I 

 dodged behind a white- ant- hill into some long grass. My 

 pursuer fortunately missed me, caught the scent of my boy, 

 and followed him. He soon lost the scent, and then sweeping 

 round to the north galloped wildly away after its mate. 



The only animal in the extermination of which man is 

 playing the leading part is the elephant. The date of its 

 extinction, however, is far distant, for in some districts it is 

 still so numerous as to be a serious plague to the inhabi- 

 tants. On the borders of the Kikuyu country elephants occur 

 in such abundance and do such serious damage to the planta- 

 tions, that an elephant-hunter would be welcomed as warmly 

 as if he were a mediaeval knight-errant come to do battle with 

 the dragon. Lions also are numerous, and do terrible damage 

 to the herds. Their tracks occur everywhere ; and though I 

 only saw them thrice, I heard them very frequently. 



Lions as a rule appear to be timid, and three of them 

 withdrew from the body of a hippopotamus, on which they 

 were feeding, rather than allow me to put a bullet into one 

 of them. But on another occasion I had an unpleasant 

 experience of their audacity when hungry ; for, as described 

 on p. 150, they charged the camp at night, and killed two 

 donkeys. The power of lions, however, has been much 

 exaggerated. Those in Algeria have been reported to leap 

 into cattle kraals, seize buffaloes bigger than themselves, and 

 then, with their prey in their mouths, leap over ten-foot 

 palings, and run away at full speed for miles. Neither of the 

 lions I saw could have performed such a feat. Yet their 

 slouching style of movement gives them an aspect of immense 

 muscular strength ; and the catalogue of accidents in lion- 

 shooting shows that its dangers are not to be lightly esti- 

 mated. It has been denied that lions can kill animals as 

 large as the rhinoceros or hippopotamus ; but that they can 

 do so we found on the Thika-thika. Three lions had sur- 

 prised a hippopotamus in some long grass about thirty yards 

 from the river ; there had been a desperate fight, in which 

 the grass had been trampled down for yards around, but the 



