X 
JOURNEY TO WEB BE SHABELEH RIVER 
253 
Following the buffalo, we put them up again, but they broke back 
towards the eastern part of the jungle, the original end from which 
we had first driven them. I had been after them for three hours, 
and though we heard their rush close to us many times, never 
obtained a glimpse of them. They were dodging about in the 
thickest parts of the forest and would not face us among the glades. 
At last I decided to go to camp and organise a drive. I 
assembled all the men, and sending them in at the west end, I 
sat with the two hunters on a platform from which the boys 
were accustomed to scare birds from the crops, at the east end, 
and waited for the buffalo to be driven past. The platform 
was a flimsy structure some six feet high, and commanded a 
good view of the edge of the woods and the reeds bordering the 
river, through which I hoped the buffalo would break. 
The men from the west end of the jungle were extended 
to form a semicircle, and moved towards me, firing guns and 
shouting. The buffalo now got into a patch of the thickest 
bush, near where we had found their lair in the four trees grow- 
ing together, so to get them out of this stronghold my men set 
fire to the jungle. Towards evening, when the fire was at its 
height, they at last made up their minds, and instead of coming 
into the reeds broke back through the line of men, charging 
into them in spite of a shower of badly-aimed Snider bullets ; 
and escaping from the forest, they cantered over a mile of open 
grass plain to the dense thorn-bush and high grass on the slope 
leading up towards the G&lla mountains. They never returned 
to Shendil while we were encamped there, and I have no doubt 
they left the country altogether. 
At dusk on the evening of the 13th I went out to the burnt 
plain and got up to a herd of waterbuck, shooting a cow in 
mistake for the bull, and then wounding the bull. He got 
away into long grass, and night coming on I lost him. Going 
to follow him up next morning I first made for the body of 
the cow. I found that a lion had discovered it early in the 
night, and, eating his fill, had left the remainder to the hyaenas. 
Following up the tracks of the lion, I found the carcase of the 
wounded bull, which the lion had struck down, close to a 
thicket of thorn-bush and high grass. Part of the haunches 
was consumed, and the lion had apparently gone into the patch 
of grass to sleep or watch over the meat. 
Silently sitting down behind a bush close by with my two 
hunters, I waited from eight o’clock till noon for the lion to 
