308 THE LAND OF THE LION 
their African cousins do nothing of the sort. The birds old 
and young run hither and thither. ‘The water-course is not 
to be attempted; father and mother might get over, but the 
tender bodies of the chicks could not endure the thorn 
bushes or the sharp rocks. Presently the hen rushes off to 
our left, but the cock is not of her mind at all. He chooses 
a braver and, as it turns out, a wiser course. In some way 
or other he impresses his will on his eight frightened children. 
Led by the boldest chick, they form a “line ahead” and 
with their pretty brown fluffy wings half spread sail steadily 
by us, keeping distance as though they were a line of battle- 
ships, the cock in the rear. Then when the father realizes 
how close his brood must come to us in passing, he deliber- 
ately leaves the rear of the family column and splendidly 
sails along between the enemy and his children. He seemed 
to look right into my face as he went by, not thirty yards 
away. It was a rare and beautiful sight. 
But the morning was not over yet, and I was to 
have another and a very near sight of an animal that always 
seems to me one of the most attractive in Africa. 
I never care to shoot a giraffe. As a specimen he is 
unnatural unless mounted as he stands, and standing he 
would look uncouth unless one found him some such place 
to stand in as the Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. 
(He would look better there, by the way, than some of the 
things now in it!) 
The giraffe is too old to shoot; no one can tell how old he 
is, much older than the elephant. And no one would think 
of shooting an elephant were he not prodigiously destructive 
to the farmer and were his tusks not worth a great deal of 
money. But the giraffe is perfectly harmless, he was never 
known to hurt anyone, and he gets his living off the upper 
boughs of thorn trees, which no one can reach but himself, 
and nobody else would eat if he could reach them. 
To see his beautifully mottled skin towering up among 
