106 HIPPO AND LEOPARD [ch. v 



shaded veranda, everything was so comfortable that it 

 was hard to reahze that v^^e were far in the interior of 

 Africa and almost under the Equator. Our hostess was 

 herself a good rider and good shot, and had killed her 

 lion ; and both our host and a friend who was staying 

 with him, Mr. Bulpett, were not merely mighty hunters 

 who had bagged every important \'ariety of large and 

 dangerous game, but were also explorers of note, whose 

 travels had materially helped in widening the area of 

 our knowledge of what was once the dark continent. 



Many birds sang in the garden— bulbuls, thrushes, 

 and warblers ; and from the narrow fringe of dense 

 woodland along the edges of the rivers other birds 

 called loudly, some with harsh, some with musical, 

 voices. Here for the first time we saw the honey- 

 guide, the bird that insists upon leading any man 

 it sees to honey, so that he may rob the hive and give 

 it a share. 



Game came right around the house. Hartebeests, 

 wildebeests, and zebras grazed in sight on the open 

 plain. The hippojDotami that lived close by in the 

 river came out at night into the garden. A couple of 

 years before a rhino had come down into the same 

 garden in broad daylight, and quite M^antonly attacked 

 one of the Kikuyu labourers, tossing him and breaking 

 his thigh. It had then passed by the house out to the 

 plain, where it saw an ox-cart, which it immediately 

 attacked and upset, cannoning off after its charge and 

 passing up through the span of oxen, breaking all the 

 yokes but fortunately not killing an animal. Then it 

 met one of the men of the house on horseback, immedi- 

 ately assailed him, and was killed for its pains. 



My host was about to go on safari for a couple of 

 months with Selous, and to manage their safari they 



