HYENAS 
61 
CH. Ill] 
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 cackling 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 vigour 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 killed or wounded by lions, buffaloes, elephants, 
and rhinos. All are dangerous game ; each species has 
to its gruesome credit a long list of mighty hunters 
