i68 THE MAN-EATERS OF TSAVO CHAP. 



time we could hear him crashing ponderously 

 through everything that came in his way, and he 

 must have gone a long distance before he recovered 

 from his fright and slowed down to his usual pace. 

 At any rate we neither heard nor saw anything 

 more of him, and spent a wakeful and uncomfort- 

 able night for nothing. 



My next attempt to bag a rhino took place some 

 months later, on the banks of the Sabaki, and was 

 scarcely more successful. I had come down from 

 Tsavo in the afternoon, accompanied by Mahina, 

 and finding a likely tree, within a few yards of the 

 river and with fresh footprints under it, I at once 

 decided to take up my position for the night in its 

 branches. Mahina preferred to sit where he could 

 take a comfortable nap, and wedged himself in a 

 fork of the tree some little way below me, but still 

 some eight or ten feet from the ground. It was a 

 calm and perfect night, such as can be seen only 

 in the tropics ; everything looked mysteriously 

 beautiful in the glorious moonlight, and stood out 

 like a picture looked at through a stereoscope. 

 From my perch among the branches I watched 

 first a water-buck come to drink in the river ; then 

 a bush-buck ; later, a tiny paa emerged from the 

 bushes and paused at every step with one graceful 

 forefoot poised in the air thoroughly on the alert 

 and looking round carefully and nervously for any 



