102 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
me; so they had continued their dinner. The fatalis- 
tic spirit of the country had prevailed. When I 
came within their range of vision, however, my ap- 
pearance was quite sufficient to arrest attention, for 
my clothes were all ripped, my arm was chewed into 
an unpleasant sight, and there was blood and dirt all 
over me. Moreover, my demands for all the anti- 
septics in camp gave them something to do, for noth- 
ing was keener in my mind than that the leopard had 
been feeding on the diseased hyena that I had shot 
in the morning. To the practical certainty of blood 
poisoning from any leopard bite not quickly treated 
was added the certainty that this leopard’s mouth 
was particularly foul with disease. While my com- 
panions were getting the surgical appliances ready, 
my boys were stripping me and dousing me with cold 
water. That done, the antiseptic was pumped into 
every one of the innumerable tooth wounds until my 
arm was so full of the liquid that an injection in one 
drove it out of another. During the process I nearly 
regretted that the leopard had not won. But it was 
applied so quickly and so thoroughly that it was a 
complete case. 
Later in the evening they brought the leopard in 
and laid it beside my cot. Her right hind foot 
showed where the first shot had hit her. The only 
other bullet that struck her was the last before she 
charged and that had creased her just under the skin 
on the back of the neck, from the shock of which she 
had instantly recovered. : 
This encounter took place fairly soon after our 
