XXI. 

 RIDING THE PLAINS. 



FROM the mere point of view of lions, lion 

 hunting was very slow work indeed. It meant 

 riding the whole of long days, from dawn until 

 dark, investigating miles of country that looked 

 all alike and in which we seemed to get nowhere. 

 One by one the long billows of plain fell behind, 

 until our camp hill had turned blue behind us, 

 and we seemed to be out in illimitable space, with 

 no possibility, in an ordinary lifetime, of ever 

 getting in touch with anything again. What from 

 above had looked as level as a floor now turned 

 into a tremendously wide and placid ground 

 swell. As a consequence we were always going 

 imperceptibly up and up and up to a long- 

 delayed sky-line, or tipping as gently down the 

 other side of the wave. From crest to crest of 

 these long billows measured two or three miles. 

 The vertical distance in elevation from trough 



