THE GUASO NYERO 287 



the shell plates of one of the large river-turtles; evidently 

 it took toll indifferently from among its fellow-denizens of 

 the river, and from among the creatures that came to drink, 

 whether beasts of pasture or the flesh eaters that preyed 

 upon them. 



He also shot three buffalo bulls, Tarlton helping him to 

 finish them off, for they are tough animals, tenacious of 

 life and among the most dangerous of African game. One 

 turned to charge, but was disabled by the bullets of both 

 of them before he could come on. Tarlton, whose experi- 

 ence in the hunting field against dangerous game had been 

 large, always maintained that, although lion hunting was 

 the most dangerous sport, because a hunted lion was far 

 more apt to charge than any other animal, yet when a 

 buffalo bull did charge he was more dangerous than a lion, 

 because harder to kill or turn. Where zebra and other 

 game are abundant, as on the Athi Plains, lion do not med- 

 dle with such formidable quarry as buffalo; on Heatley's 

 farm lions sometimes made their lairs in the same papyrus 

 swamp with the buffalo, but hardly ever molested them. 

 In many places, however, the lion preys largely, and in some 

 places chiefly, on the buffalo. The hunters of wide ex- 

 perience with whom I conversed, men like Tarlton, Cun- 

 inghame, and Home, were a unit in stating that where a 

 single lion killed a buffalo they had always found that the 

 buffalo was a cow or immature bull, and that whenever 

 they had found a full-grown bull thus killed, several lions 

 had been engaged in the job. Home had once found the 

 carcass of a big bull which had been killed and eaten by 

 lions, and near by lay a dead lioness with a great rip in her 

 side, made by the buffalo's horn in the fight in which he 



