108 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



everything was so comfortable that it was hard to realize 

 that we 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 

 variety of large and dangerous game, but were also ex- 

 plorers 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, wilde- 

 beests, and zebras grazed in sight on the open plain. The 

 hippopotami 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 wantonly attacked one of the Kikuyu laborers, 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, imme- 

 diately assailed him, and was killed for its pains. 



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



