172 THE LAND OF THE LION 



difficulty, have taken the splendid towering bull as he stood 

 at less than forty yards from me, before he got his wits 

 about him and trundled off. When at last he got his 

 mighty legs going, H. couldn't resist the temptation of run- 

 ning him for four or five hundred yards just to try his 

 paces. The pony was of course not at its best, after so 

 long a day, and H. rides as heavy as I do one hundred 

 and ninety pounds but the plucky pony had the pace 

 of him easily. It was most interesting to notice the great 

 bull's tactics when horse and rider were right on him. 

 Without altering his rolling, rocking stride, he would strike 

 'out with his rear hind leg, getting off a prodigious kick that, 

 if it landed, would have smashed almost everything.* 

 This he did four or five times. H.'s pony swept him against 

 a low, stout bush, and off he went, so ending the curious race. 

 The giraffe almost immediately pulled up. He seemed to 

 be thoroughly winded, and calmly looked down on us as we 

 wished him good luck and rode by. To shoot such great, 

 'harmless creatures, almost sole survivors, as they are, of 

 races of animals long extinct, seems to me a thoughtless 

 cruelty. I speak of the giraffe's extraordinary neck and 

 leg action in another place. 



A transparent streak of green blue colour in the east 

 just light enough to see the stones and holes that make 

 riding dangerous, and H. and I are off again. Yesterday 

 morning we were after elephant sign, and as the lionesses 

 came in our way, we "fell into temptation" and it might 

 have been a "snare." To-day it is lion we want, and no 

 place in all Africa could offer a fairer chance to get them. 



First of all, for at least three months, the country has 



* I have no doubt that it is respect for that terrible kick of the giraffe which keeps the lion from 

 attempting to pull down the young. No simpler beast lives on the veldt than a young giraffe. He is 

 'big, too, and must be toothsome. I watched one near our camp, when we were here in May. But 

 though lions were very plentiful, he seemed to meet with no difficulty. On speaking of this race of 

 ours after giraffe to Mr. F. J. Jackson, Lieutenant-Governor of the Protectorate, and a well known 

 authority on the game of Africa, he was greatly interested, assuring us that he had never icen or 

 heard of giraffe kicking out in self-defence before. 



