160 TREKKING [ch. vii 



way : " Alice's Adventures," for instance, and Fitz- 

 gerald — I say Fitzgerald, because reading other versions 

 of Omar Khayyam always leaves me with the feeling 

 that Fitzgerald is the major partner in the book we 

 really like. Then there was a book I had not read, 

 Dumas 's " Louves de Machecoul." This was presented 

 to me at Port Said by M. Jusserand, the brother of 

 an old and valued friend, the French ambassador 

 at Washington — the vice-president of the " Tennis 

 Cabinet." We had been speaking of Balzac, and I 

 mentioned regretfully that I did not at heart care for 

 his longer novels, excepting the " Chouans," and, as 

 John Hay once told me, that in the eye of all true 

 Balzacians, to like the " Chouans " merely aggravates 

 the offence of not liking the novels which they deem 

 really great. M. Jusserand thereupon asked me if I knew 

 Dumas's Vendean novel. Being a fairly good Dumas 

 man, I was rather ashamed to admit that 1 did not ; 

 whereupon he sent it to me, and I enjoyed it to the full. 

 The next day was Kermit's red-letter day. We were 

 each out until after dark. I merely got some of the 

 ordinary game, taking the skins for the naturalists, the 

 flesh for our following ; he killed two cheetalis, and 

 a fine maned lion, finer than any previously killed. 

 There were three cheetahs together. Kermit, who was 

 with Tarlton, galloped the big male, and, although it 

 had a mile's start, ran into it in three miles," and shot it 

 as it lay under a bush. He afterwards shot another, a 

 female, who was lying on a stone kopje. Neither made 

 any attempt to charge. The male had been eating a 

 tommy. The lion was with a lioness, which wheeled to 

 one side as the horsemen galloped after her maned mate. 

 He turned to bay after a run of less than a mile, and 

 started to charge from a distance of two hundred yards ; 



