xmt A DAY ON THE N’DUNGU ESCARPMENT 147 
Tsavo, the only difference being that there were 
more green trees about. The country, moreover, 
was somewhat more open, and was intersected by 
hundreds of broad and well-beaten animal paths, 
along which we could walk upright in comfort. I was 
leading the way, followed closely by Mahina and 
Mabruki, when suddenly we almost walked upon a 
lion which was lying down at the side of the 
path and which had probably been asleep. It gave 
a fierce growl and at once bounded off through the 
bush ; but to Mabruki—who doubtless recalled then 
the warning I had given him in fun earlier in the 
day—the incident appeared so alarming that he flung 
down his stick-load of meat and fled for his life, 
much to the amusement of the others, even the 
usually silent Wa Kamba joining in the general 
laughter as they scrambled for the discarded meat. 
We saw nothing more of the lion, though a few steps 
further on brought us to the remains of a zebra 
which he had recently killed and feasted on; but 
after this Mabruki kept carefully in the rear. 
Curiously enough, only a short while later we 
had an exactly similar adventure with a rhino, as 
owing to the tortuous nature of the path, we walked 
right into it before we were aware. Like the 
lion, however, it was more frightened than we, and 
charged away from us through the jungle. 
For about two hours we pursued our journey into 
eZ 
