THE REDISCOVERED COUNTRY 117 



all at once some dilatory god threw over the switch, 

 and it was light! 



Never shall I become accustomed to the magic of 

 this phenomenon. Whenever anybody, white or black, 

 happens to be near me, I remark upon it to him; and 

 generally gain sHght response. 



Went first to look at the lion kill (nothing), and then 

 up the small bushy ravines on the chance of seeing his 

 lordship. Found where he had killed an eland with 

 twenty-four inch horns. Saw sign of greater kudu. 



The countr>^ rolled away before us in wave after 

 wave of low, sparsely wooded green hills. The shallow 

 valleys between were without trees, and grassy as so 

 many cultivated parks. The eye followed them a mile 

 or so, to come to rest on the low slopes of more hills, 

 covered scatteringly with more little trees. In the 

 bottom lands were compact black herds of wildebeeste, 

 grazing in close formation, like bison in a park, and 

 around and between them small groups of topi and 

 zebra — two or three, eight or a dozen — moving here 

 and there, furnishing the life and grace to the picture 

 of which the wildebeeste were the dignity and the power. 

 And every once in a while, at the edge of a thicket, my 

 eye caught the bright sheen of impalla, or in the middle 

 distance the body stripes of gazelle, or close down in 

 the grass the charming miniature steinbuck or oribi. 

 These were the beasts, of course, we were certain always 

 to see; our daily familiar friends, the crowds on the 



