468 AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 



So Loring, Mearns, Kermit, and I, who were in camp, got 

 out the porters and cut a lane around our tents and goods; 

 and then started a back fire, section after section, from the 

 other side of this lane. We kept every one ready, with 

 branches and wet gunny-sacks, and lit each section in turn, 

 so that we could readily beat out the flames at any point 

 where they threatened. The air was still, and soon after 

 nightfall our back fire had burnt fifty or a hundred yards 

 away from camp, and the danger was practically over. 

 Shortly afterward one of the fires against which we were 

 guarding came over a low hill-crest into view, beyond the 

 line of our back fire. It was a fine sight to see the long line 

 of leaping, wavering flames advance toward one another. 

 An hour or two passed before they met, half a mile from 

 camp. Wherever they came together there would be a 

 moment's spurt of roaring, crackling fire, and then it would 

 vanish, leaving at that point a blank in the circle of flame. 

 Gradually the blanks in the lines extended, until the fire 

 thus burnt itself out, and darkness succeeded the bright 

 red glare. 



The fires continued to burn in our neighborhood for a 

 couple of days. Finally one evening the great beds of 

 papyrus across the bay caught fire. After nightfall it was 

 splendid to see the line of flames, leaping fifty feet into the 

 air as they worked across the serried masses of tall papy- 

 rus. When they came toward the water they kindled the 

 surface of the bay into a ruddy glare, while above them the 

 crimson smoke clouds drifted slowly to leeward. The fire 

 did not die out until toward morning; and then, behind it, 

 we heard the grand booming chorus of a party of lions. 

 They were full fed, and roaring as they went to their day 

 beds; each would utter a succession of roars which grew 

 louder and louder until they fairly thundered, and then 

 died gradually away, until they ended in a succession of 

 sighs and grunts. 



As the fires burned to and fro across the country birds of 

 many kinds came to the edge of the flames to pick up the 



