2QO THE LAND OF THE LION 



an animal that to my mind carries the finest trophy in Africa, 

 follows it up as a matter of course. So we followed on and 

 on. Alas, I have no triumphant ending to tell of. The day 

 was warm and in the bush the heat was stifling. We stooped, 

 we crawled, now and then straightening up, when over- 

 hanging cactus and clinging thorns permitted, to wipe off 

 the sweat and go on again. Twice we roused him. Twice 

 we found where he had lain down, and there were blood 

 spoor. My n|-pound rifle grew very heavy and my 

 nerves were on the qui vive every instant of the time. But 

 the dense scrub and suffocating day were against us and 

 the afternoon torrent came down and blood signs were 

 washed out, I had unwillingly to acknowledge defeat. But 

 it was a great day, and I would not forego having heard that 

 terrorizing sound, that thunderous rush of the aroused and 

 stampeded herd at a few yards' distance in the well-nigh 

 impenetrable jungle, for a great deal. In the dark- forest of 

 the Congo the hunter of future years may for many a day 

 hear it. But from penetrable Africe this mightiest of the 

 wild tribe of Bos must soon perish. In Uganda the buffalo 

 are in some places so destructive to native shambas that their 

 extermination is demanded. They seem, too (though all 

 well-informed men are not as yet agreed on this point) to 

 bring in their train the dreaded tsetse fly, one of the worst 

 of all African scourges; and not only at the advent of the 

 white man must they perish, but as the native learns to 

 cultivate the land they must go, as their habit of night feed- 

 ing is ruinous to the cultivator. 



Some time after I had written these notes on my long 

 hunt after a wounded buffalo in the cactus thickets of the 

 Quasi Nyiro, a fact came to my knowledge which largely 

 accounted for my failure to bag that fine bull. 



My Somali gunbearer, Dooda, though a keen hunter and 

 brave man, had in full measure the usual Somali's fault of 

 overweening conceit. He had got it into his head that the 



