XIX 



A LION-HUNT 



TOWARDS the end of January, 1897, with a small 

 caravan I reached the Kikuyu district. I came 

 from the Victoria-Nyanza, where I had been laid up for 

 months with malaria. That I am alive to tell the tale 

 I owe, above all, to the devotion of two English officers 

 in Fort Mumias, Mr. C. W. Hobley and Mr. Tomkins, 

 who nursed me through that terrible fever. In May, 

 1896, I had joined a caravan of about four hundred and 

 twenty men, which were starting on a scientific expedi- 

 tion, having marched from the German coast to the 

 Victoria-Nyanza, and traversing on its way districts 

 hitherto unknown and unexplored. 



I refrain from describing this interesting expedition, 

 and confine myself to relating to the patient reader an 

 adventure which I had on January 25, 1897, in Kikuyu, 

 on my return to the coast. The invigorating air of this 

 high land had improved me so much that I could not 

 resist the desire to hunt for game. On January 24, I 

 was the guest of Mr. Hall, the commandant of Fort 

 Smith, in Kikuyu, who, in his characteristic English way, 

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