IN THE FOREST 



camp close to the village in order to have porters 

 every morning to carry my game. 



The night is dark and we are asleep ; the dogs are 

 in the tent. Suddenly a shot, followed by a furious 

 galloping, awakes me. Immediately afterwards loud 

 cries proceed from the village. I go up, and the 

 negro armed with the Martini tells me that he saw 

 near him two animals in pursuit. They doubled back 

 and came close to him. It was then that he fired, 

 at a distance of less than a dozen yards. In the 

 morning I read the whole history written on the 

 ground. A Hon and lioness had chased a waterbuck ; 

 the male, pursuing the antelope, made it pass an 

 ambush of the lioness, which had taken up her position 

 behind a tree eight yards from our tent. At the shot 

 the victim and its pursuers decamped. Needless to 

 say, they had not been touched : on the other hand, 

 the vigilant sentry had not missed the village, for 

 he had very cleverly planted his bullet right in the 

 middle of a hut, of which the occupants cried with 

 astonishment and fear at finding themselves thus 

 bombarded. To my righteous reproaches my man 

 replied, unwittingly paraphrasing the famous saying 

 of Soubarow, — " The ball is mad." However this 

 may be, the lions were very good in preferring a haunch 

 of waterbuck to that of a Christian. Sometimes they 

 are not so considerate, and one of Ganda's men was 

 there as a proof. This Kafir, M'tepea by name, was 

 in company with another Ganda negro, who had 



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