HUNTING ELEPHANT AND RIDING LION 173 



been quite undisturbed. No shot has alarmed the wary 

 monarch of the plain. Here there are more lions than in 

 the same extent of country anywhere. Far more! They 

 abound near Laikipia where we have been hunting, but there 

 the riding is not nearly so safe nor the going so fast. There 

 are not only more holes, but the ground is soft, for long 

 stretches of a mile at a time. It is black and sticky, too,, 

 in parts when it rains, and when the rains are over, the- 

 same black soil, baked by the sun, cakes to a bricky hard- 

 ness, and as it has been much trampled by game, the sur- 

 face is often exceedingly rough, making it dangerous riding^ 

 On the famous Athi plains, near Nairobi, the black soil, 

 is a veritable gumbo, and wild pig and badger holes are so> 

 common, that in many places fast riding is impossible. 



Here the going is superb ; not, of course, over the whole- 

 plateau, but, just by good fortune, in that comparatively 

 small part of it, round the Rock. Some eight miles to east 

 of Sergoit is a long papyrus swamp, surrounded for many 

 miles, on all sides, by plain. The soil is rich, the grass sweet 

 and strong. The game herds seem, for their mutual pro- 

 tection, to have made an agreement to meet after the rain 

 on this wide prairie land, and to graze it down and keep 

 it down. I say for their mutual protection, for in the long 

 grass that soon after the rains covers the low lands bor- 

 dering the Nzoia, and also clothes all the country across 

 that river, both lion and N'dorobo can work their will on 

 the larger antelope and the zebra. Neither of these dire 

 enemies of the game find much difficulty in crawling within 

 a few yards of their prey, sheltered as they are by the dense 

 growth of long grass. From that distance the lion makes 

 his terrible rush, and the wild man speeds his deadly poisoned 

 arrow. As the grass lengthens, the larger herds of game 

 leave the lower country for the tableland on which we are 

 hunting, seemingly knowing well, that on it, they are in 

 comparative safety. The N'dorobo kill little game on the- 



