GOOD-BYE SERGOIT 257 
some hundreds of yards away, whereas he is probable 
miles. When a lion calls really near, say within three 
hundred yards of your tent, you are never likely to forget 
it. You will agree with your men, who by that time 
are likely to be looking you up, when they say, “‘He 
makes the ropes shake.” 
In hilly country I have heard lions quarrelling or calling 
over a rhino carcass at seven miles distance on a still night. 
I agree with the Psalmist: ‘‘ Roaring after their prey”’ 
is the best description of the sound that they can make 
when they so choose. 
A yellow light lingers long in a lion’s eye after death; 
much longer than I have seen light live in any other dead 
animal’s eye. I have wondered at the reason. 
Unwillingly at last I turn my face southward and 
leave behind me the beautiful land over which I have 
wandered for so long. I am back once more among the 
forest edges of the Mau. 
When first I rode this trail it was springtime, or a 
season that seemed to correspond in some important respect 
to spring. The rains were just beginning and the whole 
country was one green carpet of short, freshly springing 
grass. We ate quantities of succulent mushrooms, immense 
in size, and excellent in flavour. Springing flowers made 
the veldt gay. 
Now the land is a rich ripe yellow, where creeping 
grass fires have not blackened it. The vigorous growth 
of leaf and twig has been checked by unbroken days of 
dry heat. And all the flowers that cannot rear a sturdy 
head above all the enclosing tides of high grass, have 
disappeared long ago. 
The change is great between May and October, but 
the borderland of the forest is very beautiful still, though 
with a different beauty. 
The crowns of the trees in Africa are thicker and 
