338 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



by mingled firmness and good treatment; and he was a 

 mighty hunter, and helped us in every way. 



Here we met Kermit and Tarlton, and heard all about 

 their hunt. They had been away from us for three weeks 

 and a half, along the Guaso Nyero, and had enjoyed first- 

 rate luck. Kermit had been particularly interested in a 

 caravan they had met, consisting of wild spear-bearing 

 Borani, people like Somalis, who were bringing down scores 

 of camels and hundreds of small horses to sell at Nairobi. 

 They had come from the north, near the outlying Abyssin- 

 ian lands, and the caravan was commanded by an Arab of 

 stately and courteous manners. Such an extensive cara- 

 van journey was rare in the old days before English rule; 

 but one of the results of the "Pax Europaica," wherever 

 it obtains in German, French, or English Africa, is a great 

 increase of intercourse, commercial and social, among the 

 different tribes, even where widely separated. This cara- 

 van had been followed by lions; and a day or two after- 

 ward Kermit and Tarlton ran into what were probably 

 these very lions. There were eleven of them: a male with a 

 heavy mane, three lionesses, and seven cubs, some of them 

 about half grown. As Kermit and Tarlton galloped after 

 them, the lion took the lead, the cubs coming in the middle, 

 while the three lionesses loped along in the rear, guarding 

 their young. The lion cared little for his wives and off- 

 spring, and gradually drew ahead of them, while the two 

 horsemen, riding at full speed, made a wide detour round 

 the others in order to reach him; so that at last they got 

 between him and the ten lionesses and cubs, the big lion 

 coming first, the horsemen next, and then the lesser lions, 

 all headed the same way. As the horse-hooves thundered 

 closer the lion turned to bay. Kermit whose horse had 

 once fallen with him in the chase and Tarlton leaped 

 off their horses, and Kermit hit the lion with his first shot, 

 and, as it started to charge, mortally wounded it with a 

 second bullet. It turned and tried to reach cover, and 

 Tarlton stopped it with a third shot; for there was no time 



