62 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
broad daylight, ran after it, overtook it, and flew at it. 
The hyena made no effective fight, although the dog—not 
a third its weight—bit it severely, and delayed its flight so 
that it was killed. During the first few weeks of our trip I 
not infrequently heard hyenas after nightfall, but saw 
none. Kermit, however, put one out of a ravine or dry 
creek-bed—a donga, as it is locally called—and though the 
brute had a long start he galloped after it and succeeded 
in running it down. The chase was a long one, for twice the 
hyena got in such rocky country that he almost distanced 
his pursuer; but at last, after covering nearly ten miles, 
Kermit ran into it in the open, shooting it from the saddle 
as it shambled along at a canter growling with rage and 
terror. I would not have recognized the cry of the hyenas 
from what I had read, and it was long before I heard them 
laugh. Pease said that he had only once heard them really 
laugh. On that occasion he was watching for lions outside 
a Somali zareba. Suddenly a leopard leaped clear over 
the zareba, close beside him, and in a few seconds came 
flying back again, over the high thorn fence, with a sheep 
in its mouth; but no sooner had it landed than the hyenas 
rushed at it and took away the sheep; and then their cack¬ 
ling and shrieking sounded exactly like the most unpleasant 
kind of laughter. The normal death of very old lions, as 
they grow starved and feeble—unless they are previously 
killed in an encounter with dangerous game like buffalo— 
is to be killed and eaten by hyenas; but of course a lion 
in full vigor pays no heed to hyenas, unless it is to kill one 
if it gets in the way. 
During the last few decades, in Africa, hundreds of 
white hunters, and thousands of native hunters, have been 
