GIRAFFES AND LIONS 
309 
CH. Xl] 
give the safari a good feed; and one day I shot them 
five zebra and an oryx bull, together with a couple of 
gazelle for ourselves and our immediate attendants— 
enough of the game being hal-lalled to provide for the 
Mohammedans in the safari. I also shot an old bull 
giraffe of the northern form, after an uneventful stalk 
which culminated in a shot with the Winchester at a 
hundred and seventy yards. In most places this parti-* 
cular stretch of country was not suitable for galloping, 
the ground being rotten, filled with holes, and covered 
with tall, coarse grass. One evening we saw two lions 
half a mile away. I tried to ride them, but my horse 
fell twice in the first hundred and fifty yards, and I 
could not even keep them in sight. Another day we 
got a glimpse of two lions, a quarter of a mile off, gliding 
away among the thorns. They went straight to the 
river and swam across it. More surprising was the fact 
that a monkey, which lost its head when we surprised 
it in a tree by the river, actually sprang plump into the 
stream, and swam, easily and strongly, across it. 
One day we had a most interesting experience with 
a cow giraffe. We saw her a long way off and stalked 
to within a couple of hundred yards before we could 
make out her sex. She was standing under some thorn- 
trees, occasionally shifting her position for a few yards, 
and then again standing motionless with her head thrust 
in among the branches. She was indulging in a series 
of noontide naps. At last, when she stood and went to 
sleep again, I walked up to her, Cuninghame and our 
two gun-bearers, Rakhari and Kongoni, following a 
hundred yards behind. When I was within forty yards, 
in plain sight, away from cover, she opened her eyes 
and looked drowsily at me; but I stood motionless and 
she dozed off again. This time I walked up to within 
