In Wildest Africa ^ 



a camp-fire serves all right to frighten lions away. It is 

 a remarkable comment on this that over a hundred Indians 

 employed on the Uganda Railway should have been seized 

 by lions. In other parts of Africa even the natives are 

 reluctant to go through the night unprotected by a zareba, 

 because they know that lions when short of other prey 

 are apt to attack human beings, and neither the hunter 

 nor his camp-fire have any terrors for them. 



However that may be, the true sportsman and 

 naturalist in the tropics will continue to find himself 

 obliged to encamp as best he may a la belle dtoile, trusting 

 to his lucky star to protect him as he sinks wearily to 

 sleep. 



#jLt. SL. .At, ^ 



W W -TT -TV" 



The long caravan is again on the move, like a snake, 

 over the velt. Word has come to me that at a distance 

 of a few days' march there has been a fall of rain. As 

 by a miracle grass has sprung up, and plant-life is reborn, 

 trees and bushes have put out new leaves, and immense 

 numbers of wild animals have congregated in the region. 

 Thither we are making our way, over stretches still arid 

 and barren. Watering-places are few and far between 

 and hidden away. But we know how to find them, and 

 hard by one of them I have to pitch my camp for a time. 



As we go we see endless herds of animals making for 

 the same goal — zebras, gnus, oryx antelopes, hartebeests, 

 Grant's gazelles, impallahs, giraffes, ostriches, as well as 

 numbers of rhinoceroses, all drawn as though by magic 

 to the region of the rain. 



With my taxidermist Orgeich I march at the head of 



458 



