xvm LIONS ON THE ATHI PLAINS 197 



stood looking at me in a dazed and tottery kind of 

 way, and then to my amazement he turned and 

 made off. At first he moved with such a shaky 

 and uncertain gait that I felt confident that he could 

 only go a few yards before dropping ; so, as I did 

 not wish to disturb the other game around us by 

 firing a second shot, I thought it best just to wait. 

 To my utter astonishment, however, after he had 

 staggered for about sixty yards he seemed to revive 

 suddenly, broke into his ordinary gallop and quickly 

 rejoined the herd. From that time I lost all trace 

 of him, though I followed up for four or five 

 miles. 



The wildebeeste, in fact, is like Kipling's Fuzzy- 

 Wuzzy "'e's generally shammin' when 'e's dead"; 

 and my friend Rawson about this time had an 

 experience very similar to mine, but attended with 

 more serious results. He had knocked his wilde- 

 beeste over in much the same way, and thought it 

 was dead ; and as he was very keen on obtaining 

 photographs of game, he took his stand-camera 

 from the Indian who carried it and proceeded to 

 focus it on the animal's head. When he was just 

 about to take the picture, he was thunderstruck to 

 see the wildebeeste jump up and come charging down 

 upon him. He sprang quickly aside, and in an 

 instant up went the camera into the air, followed 

 the next moment by the unfortunate Indian, the 



