354 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



We started immediately after breakfast. Kirke, Skally, 

 Mouton, Jordaan, Mr. and Mrs. Corbett, Captain Chap- 

 man, and our party, were on horseback; of course we car- 

 ried our rifles, but our duty was merely to round up the 

 lion and hold him, if he went off so far in advance that even 

 the Nandi runners could not overtake him. We intended 

 to beat the country toward some shallow, swampy valleys 

 twelve miles distant. 



In an hour we overtook the Nandi warriors, who were 

 advancing across the rolling, grassy plains in a long line, 

 with intervals of six or eight yards between the men. They 

 were splendid savages, stark naked, lithe as panthers, the 

 muscles rippling under their smooth dark skins; all their 

 lives they had lived on nothing but animal food, milk, 

 blood, and flesh, and they were fit for any fatigue or danger. 

 Their faces were proud, cruel, fearless; as they ran they 

 moved with long springy strides. Their head-dresses were 

 fantastic ; they carried ox-hide shields painted with strange 

 devices; and each bore in his right hand the formidable 

 war spear, used both for stabbing and for throwing at close 

 quarters. The narrow spear heads of soft iron were bur- 

 nished till they shone like silver; they were four feet long, 

 and the point and edges were razor sharp. The wooden 

 haft appeared for but a few inches; the long butt was also 

 of iron, ending in a spike, so that the spear looked almost 

 solid metal. Yet each sinewy warrior carried his heavy 

 weapon as if it were a toy, twirling it till it glinted in the sun 

 rays. Herds of game, red hartebeests and striped zebra and 

 wild swine, fled right and left before the advance of the line. 



It was noon before we reached a wide, shallow valley, 

 with beds of rushes here and there in the middle, and on 



