108 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
everything was so comfortable that it was hard to realize 
that we were far in the interior of Africa and almost under 
the equator. Our hostess was herself a good rider and 
good shot, and had killed her lion; and both our host and 
a friend who was staying with him, Mr. Bulpett, were not 
merely mighty hunters who had bagged every important 
variety of large and dangerous game, but were also ex¬ 
plorers of note, whose travels had materially helped in 
widening the area of our knowledge of what was once 
the dark continent. 
Many birds sang in the garden, bulbuls, thrushes, and 
warblers; and from the narrow fringe of dense woodland 
along the edges of the rivers other birds called loudly, some 
with harsh, some with musical voices. Here for the first 
time we saw the honey-guide, the bird that insists upon 
leading any man it sees to honey, so that he may rob the 
hive and give it a share. 
Game came right around the house. Hartebeests, wilde¬ 
beests, and zebras grazed in sight on the open plain. The 
hippopotami that lived close by in the river came out at 
night into the garden. A couple of years before a rhino 
had come down into the same garden in broad daylight, and 
quite wantonly attacked one of the Kikuyu laborers, tossing 
him and breaking his thigh. It had then passed by the 
house out to the plain, where it saw an ox cart, which it 
immediately attacked and upset, cannoning off after its 
charge and passing up through the span of oxen, breaking 
all the yokes but fortunately not killing an animal. Then 
it met one of the men of the house on horseback, imme¬ 
diately assailed him, and was killed for its pains. 
My host was about to go on safari for a couple of 
