372 LARGE GAME. CHAP. vm. 



smoke-obscured lines of fire a resemblance to an engage- 

 ment ; the rapid advance of one side as the wind favoured 

 it causing for the same reason the apparent wavering and 

 hesitation of the opposing lines, while, when they did meet, 

 the blaze of flame that then took place might not inaptly 

 have been taken to represent a hand-to-hand conflict. 



Later in the evening the wind changed, and increasing, 

 blew down the plain, and the various lines soon merged 

 into one which rapidly neared the narrow pass between 

 the streams, leaving behind them hundreds of minute 

 fires, the smouldering of which enveloped the ground 

 with smoke. The grass got longer and longer, till at last 

 the reeds were reached, and then for several minutes the 

 spectacle was magnificent. Nothing could be seen but 

 immense tongues of lurid flame shooting out of a molten 

 sea, and carried forward by the wind, licking the tops of 

 the reeds twenty yards in front. The sound, even at the 

 distance at which we were, resembled the low rumble of 

 thunder, and the whole country and sky were lit up as if 

 it were day. Half an hour sufficed to take the fire to the 

 foot of the hills, up which it climbed in as good a line as 

 the inequalities of the surface would permit, but before it 

 had reached half-way it was much broken up and detached, 

 and as the distance now gave each fire the appearance of 

 being stationary, the whole hill looked as if covered with 

 an innumerable number of watch-fires. But perhaps the 

 most curious spectacle was yet to come. When the fire 

 reached the top it was still more broken up into single 

 detachments, apparently a yard or so apart (though really 

 much more), which at that distance appeared to be station- 

 ary, and burning quite quietly and steadily, so that the 



