xiu 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. 

 \Ve saw nothing more of the lion, though a few steps 

 further on brought us to the remains of a zebra 



o 



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 

 rio-ht into it before we were aware. Like the 



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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 



L 2 



