CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS 161 



the old days, at any rate, have been enough to 

 send most wild beasts, even lions, into hiding. 

 If I remember right, a well-known traveller in 

 Morocco, who is now dead, once bicycled right 

 against a wild boar and was charged. Nowa- 

 days, no doubt, with the opening up of Africa, 

 even the rare and timid okapi is familiar with 

 the sight of cyclists, but twenty years ago a 

 bicycle must have been an unusual apparition 

 in the African forest, and it was about that time 

 that a cyclist had a very narrow escape indeed 

 between Blantyre and Namazi. The story was 

 as follows : It was late in the evening and dark- 

 ness was falling swiftly, as it does in Africa, 

 with only the faint illumination of a young 

 moon. The man had dismounted and was 

 pushing his machine uphill, when, suddenly, 

 he heard a heavy animal of some kind moving 

 in the bush close to the road. He thought 

 that, at the worst, it might be a buffalo moved 

 by curiosity to keep step with him, as these 

 animals sometimes will. Still, the sensation 

 of any wild animal of such size so close to him 

 was sufficiently unpleasant to make him hurry 

 as much as was possible on a bad road. When 

 he was about half way up the hill, something 

 prompted him to look round. It was well that 

 he did so, for there, standing broadside across 

 the trail and looking straight at him, was a 

 full-grown lion. Even as he looked back, it 



