THE ATHI EIVEE 
217 
is obvious danger in going in within, say, 200 yards— 
for a lion has a fine turn of speed for a short distance. 
Nor will it be a simple shot, for hard riding will not 
have steadied the hand for fine shooting at long range. 
Clearly, useful shooting-ponies are a first essential, 
when the least delay in remounting must involve disaster; 
the pursuit also presupposes a degree of skill in horse¬ 
manship which, alas, in our own case was utterly 
lacking. 
A yet more scientific development of hunting-craft 
enables the presence of lions far away to be detected by 
the movements or position of the game on the plains. 
Thus a wide gap seen among game otherwise distributed 
regularly, is deserving of attention. This may, it is 
true, be merely accidental—more probably not; possibly 
the gap may be caused by some hyenas finishing a 
carrion meal. But it is always worth ascertaining if a 
broad vacant space be not cleared by the tell-tale scent 
of lions lying up to the windward thereof. 1 
There is of course abundance of other game, besides 
lions, on the Athi. We observed waterbuck, for example, 
coming out to feed every morning at dawn on the open 
veld adjoining the river. These were the common “ ring¬ 
tailed ” waterbuck, and one bull in particular appeared to 
carry quite a handsome head ; but when shot by W-- 
his horns only taped 22^ ins., by 8^ ins. in basal cir¬ 
cumference, and 12 ins. between tips. In East Africa 
this fine antelope never reaches the dimensions attained 
further south. 
It was noteworthy that during the first half of January 
we saw herer neither zebra nor wildebeest—usually so 
extremely abundant. But on January 20 a few zebras 
appeared ; several troops showed up on the following 
day, and after that date they became numerous. The 
first wildebeest—two old bulls—were observed on 
1 So successful is our friend Mr. C. B. Perceval, Game-ranger 
of British East Africa, in thus reading Nature’s signs, that sundry 
native hunters assert that he can “ see lions ” when lying asleep in 
the grass at six or seven miles! 
