62 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



broad daylight, ran after it, overtook it, and flew at it. 

 The hyena made no effective fight, although the dog not 

 a third its weight bit it severely, and delayed its flight so 

 that it was killed. During the first few weeks of our trip I 

 not infrequently heard hyenas after nightfall, but saw 

 none. Kermit, however, put one out of a ravine or dry 

 creek-bed a donga, as it is locally called and though the 

 brute had a long start he galloped after it and succeeded 

 in running it down. The chase was a long one, for twice the 

 hyena got in such rocky country that he almost distanced 

 his pursuer; but at last, after covering nearly ten miles, 

 Kermit ran into it in the open, shooting it from the saddle 

 as it shambled along at a canter growling with rage and 

 terror. I would not have recognized the cry of the hyenas 

 from what I had read, and it was long before I heard them 

 laugh. Pease said that he had only once heard them really 

 laugh. On that occasion he was watching for lions outside 

 a Somali zareba. Suddenly a leopard leaped clear over 

 the zareba, close beside him, and in a few seconds came 

 flying back again, over the high thorn fence, with a sheep 

 in its mouth; but no sooner had it landed than the hyenas 

 rushed at it and took away the sheep; and then their cack- 

 ling and shrieking sounded exactly like the most unpleasant 

 kind of laughter. The normal death of very old lions, as 

 they grow starved and feeble unless they are previously 

 killed in an encounter with dangerous game like buffalo 

 is to be killed and eaten by hyenas; but of course a lion 

 in full vigor pays no heed to hyenas, unless it is to kill one 

 if it gets in the way. 



During the last few decades, in Africa, hundreds of 

 white hunters, and thousands of native hunters, have been 



