THE ATHI PLAINS 
207 
imagined. A minute’s reflection and tlie law-abiding 
tradition prevailed; besides, am I not a member of the 
Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the 
Empire ? which (despite the handicap of a long-drawn 
title) works hard to safeguard threatened creatures and 
to secure the provision of just such sanctuaries as that 
which now confronted me and my keenest aspirations. 
After a prolonged survey with the binoculars, I left 
the gnus in peace, but with the determination to return 
another year to the beautiful plains of the Athi River. 
With my last shot in Africa I killed a Thomson’s 
gazelle, and reached Athi River station in time to clean 
and pack rifles and enjoy a last al fresco breakfast ere 
the 12.30 train bore me coastwards. I had a travelling 
companion as far as Kiu in Mr. J. Donald, whom we had 
met six weeks earlier. D-had just secured a lion on 
the Athi under the following circumstances :—Hearing a 
roar before dawn, he set out at once, and after daybreak 
heard it again. The lion was half-a-mile away, moving 
across the plain. On reaching an ant-hill, whence he 
hoped to find the beast within shot, as a precautionary 
measure D-first peeped round the shoulder of the 
mound, and there, close at hand, espied the lion crouch¬ 
ing towards him—each, in fact, stalking the other. The 
lion had mistaken the creeping figure of a man for some 
low-moving game—probably a wart-hog. A *303 bullet 
rather below the eyes settled the question. 
Leaving Mombasa on September 22 by the German 
East-Africa Line s.s. Kanzler , and transhipping to the 
P. and 0. Marmora at Aden, I reached home, and was 
salmon-fishing in Northumberland just three weeks after 
firing my ]ast shot in Equatorial Africa. 
