CH. Ill ON SAFARI 27 



I called my friends' attention to it. On spying 

 through our glasses, however, we discovered that it 

 was a serval cat, which Mrs. S. immediately stalked 

 and bowled over. When we went to pick it up 

 it suddenly sprang to its feet, made a great arch 

 of its back and spat furiously at us, but a timely 

 bullet killed it outright and prevented it from 

 doing any damage. Soon afterwards, as we were 

 marching along towards camp with the skin of the 

 cat stretched over a porter's load to dry in the 

 sun, we suddenly came upon a deserted baby harte- 

 beeste lying desolate and hungry-looking in the 

 grass. It had evidently been left by its mother all 

 alone on the Plains to take care of itself — or of 

 course it is quite possible that the mother may have 

 been killed and eaten during the night by a lion or 

 other beast of prey. Although it was only a tiny 

 youngster, it gave us a good chase on our horses 

 before we finally captured it. As we had no means 

 of giving the pretty little creature fresh milk, with- 

 out which it would have died, we had it carried 

 by one of the porters, so that we might hand it 

 over to the owner of the first farm we should 

 come across to keep for us until our return, when 

 we hoped to take it along with us to Nairobi. 



We reached Murra-med-et about mid-day, and 

 found that our camping-place was just beside a 

 beautiful waterfall, where the Nairobi river plunges 



