472 Wanderings in Eastern Africa. 
thither ; huge trees stretching their long and crooked 
arms overhead, now invisible, and now Ht up with 
the fitful blaze ; impenetrable darkness around ; the 
heavy soughing of the wind through the forest ; the 
rumbhng growl of the lion in the distance ; the gruff 
grunt of the leopard ; and the gloomy howling of 
hyaenas, were a combination of sights and sounds 
not, perhaps, the most pleasant, but certainly not 
without a spice of the romantic. I never really 
believed in the laughing of the hyaena till I heard 
it in these forests. A donkey belonging to the 
Wasuahili died, and was dragged aside into the 
forest. At night the hyaenas gathered together and 
held carnival over the carcase. Laugh ! these scaven- 
gers do laugh ! laugh in peals of horrid, brutal, 
fiendish cachinnation, but the effect upon the human 
being is to make his flesh creep. 
One evening, as we sat talking over our camp fires, 
either one of these animals or a leopard sprang into our 
midst. Great was the scuffle that ensued, every man 
springing to his feet and seizing whatever came first — 
a bow, a spear, a gun, a fire-brand ; but before any- 
thing could be done the brute was off again, dis- 
appearing almost as suddenly as he came. 
The next evening we set a gun-trap for hyaenas, 
and before long the roar of the gun was heard. We 
went to see what had happened. An immense male 
hyaena had taken his quietus, the charge having 
entered his mouth, and he lay before us as still as 
a stone. The Wanika said, We shall have to hold 
a makanga (funeral ceremony) over this ; but the 
Wataveta, less respectful to the brute, heaped all 
manner of imprecations upon it for scratching up 
