172 0K THE LAND OF THE LION 
difficulty, have taken the splendid towering bull as he stood 
at less than forty yards from me, before he got his wits 
about him and trundled off. When at last he got his 
mighty legs going, H. couldn’t resist the temptation of run- 
ning him for four or five hundred yards — just to try his 
paces. The pony was of course not at its best, after so 
long a day, and H. rides as heavy as I do — one hundred 
and ninety pounds — but the plucky pony had the pace 
of him easily. It was most interesting to notice the great 
bull’s tactics when horse and rider were right on him. 
Without altering his rolling, rocking stride, he would strike 
out with his rear hind leg, getting off a prodigious, kick that, 
if it landed, would have smashed almost everything.* 
This he did four or five times. H.’s pony swept him against 
a low, stout bush, and off he went, so ending the curious race. 
The giraffe almost immediately pulled up. He seemed to 
be thoroughly winded, and caimly looked down on us as we 
wished him good luck and rode by. ‘To shoot such great, 
harmless creatures, almost sole survivors, as they are, of 
races of animals long extinct, seems to me a thoughtless 
cruelty. I speak of the giraffe’s extraordinary neck and 
leg action in another place. 
A transparent streak of green blue colour in the east — 
just light enough to see the stones and holes that make 
riding dangerous, and H. and I are off again. Yesterday 
morning we were after elephant sign, and as the lionesses 
came in our way, we “fell into temptation”? — and it might 
have been a “snare.” To-day it is lion we want, and no 
place in all Africa could offer a fairer chance to get them. 
First of all, for at least three months, the country has 
* JT have no doubt that it is respect for that terrible kick of the giraffe which keeps the lion from 
attempting to pull down the young. No simpler beast lives on the veldt than a young giraffe. He is 
big, too, and must be toothsome. I watched one near our camp, when we were here in May. But 
though lions were very plentiful, he seemed to meet with no difficulty. On speaking of this race of 
ours after giraffe to Mr. F. J. Jackson, Lieutenant-Governor of the Protectorate, and a well known 
authority on the game of Africa, he was greatly interested, assuring us that he had never seen or 
heard of giraffe kicking out in self-defence before. 
Fee ag 
