ENDERIT RIVER AND LAKE NAKURU 27 



forty yards of the patch, and nothing moved, I signalled 



to W and we went in. Hardly had we advanced 



ten steps when I saw a long cat-like form cronching off 

 through the thin tail of the bush some seventy yards 

 ahead. It seemed small for a lion, but I put in both 

 barrels of the Paradox, Elmi, with my second gun, 

 dashing right past me. This was utterly wrong on his 



^' 0^^_^ ^\^^ 



'■WHILE I HELD AN EMl'TY GUX " (LEOI'ARU). 



part, and a breach of all rules. At that moment, while 

 I held an empty gun, a truly magnificent leopard leaped 

 from the bush within tliu'ty yards, and I was left 

 absolutely helpless, to admire her infinite grace as she 

 silently bounded jDast my front. 



What an unending catastrophe was that business of 

 Babel ! Had we only understood at the beginning, 

 amid the polyglot jumble of tongues, that it was two 

 leopards we were after, instead of one lion, as we had 

 gathered, then surely both would not have escaped — 



