8 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



by a small river, and overlooking a dark tangle of 

 forest. The heavy tropical night has given place to 

 a grey uncomfortable dawn ; the river, sheeted in 

 mist, flows sluggishly through the forest, which here 

 and there shows open spaces and on its outer edge 

 merges into a wide plain thinly covered with 

 straggling bush. One or two buck stand at the 

 edge of the covert, wary and motionless before 

 beginning to feed : further out on the plain a troop of 

 tiang hartebeest are already grazing, and loom through 

 the haze as large as carthorses. Perched aloft 

 on the craggy escarpments are several troops of drill 

 baboons, huddled miserably together and occasion- 

 ally shivering in the biting air : the old males, burly 

 and grizzled, have already posted themselves as 

 sentinels to guard the safety of the others. Leopards 

 infest these rocky ledges, and the grim old fellows 

 know it, as they stand on duty with all four feet 

 close together like the hoofs of a chamois, and their 

 tiny eyes scowling out from under their heavy brows. 

 Gradually the mist rises : with the growing bright- 

 ness the vapour, once a foggy curtain, rolls up the 

 beetling precipices till at last it hangs in feathery 

 streamers about the summits of the crags. The hot 

 sunshine begins to warm the chilly hillsides : the 

 baboons rouse to activity in the welcome rays. The 

 cries of various birds are heard : far below in the 

 valley an immense flock of glossy starlings, a lovely 

 cloud of violet and purple, wheels through the mellow- 



