106 
HIPPO AND LEOPARD 
[CH. V 
shaded veranda, 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 
w r ith him, Mr. Bulpett, were not merely mighty hunters 
who had bagged every important variety of large and 
dangerous game, but were also explorers 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, 
wildebeests, 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 labourers, 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, immedi¬ 
ately assailed him, and was killed for its pains. 
My host was about to go on safari for a couple of 
months with Selous, and to manage their safari they 
