Judd permanganating the beater who was mauled by the leopard. 
a few yards off, coiled up in the long grass 
under a small tree, was a python. I could 
not see it distinctly, and using a solid bul¬ 
let I just missed the backbone, the bullet 
going through the body about its middle. 
Immediately the snake lashed at me with 
open jaws, and then, uncoiling, came glid¬ 
ing rapidly in our direction. I do not think 
it was charging; I think it was merely try¬ 
ing to escape. But Judd, who was utterly 
unmoved by lion, leopard, or rhino, evi¬ 
dently held this snake in respect, and yelled 
to me to get out of the way. Accordingly, I 
jumped back a few feet, and the snake came 
over the ground where I had stood; its evil 
genius then made it halt for a moment and 
raise its head to a height of perhaps three 
feet, and I killed it by a shot through the 
neck. The porters were much wrought 
up about the snake, and did not at all like 
my touching it and taking it up, first by 
the tail and then by the head. It was 
only twelve feet long, weighing about forty 
pounds. We tied it to a long stick and 
sent it in by two porters. 
Another day we beat for lions, but with¬ 
out success. We rode to a spot a few miles 
off, where we were joined by three Boer 
farmers. They were big, upstanding men, 
looking just as Boer farmers ought to look 
who had been through a war and had ever 
since led the adventurous life of frontier 
farmers in wild regions. They were ac¬ 
companied by a pack of big, rough-looking 
dogs, but were on foot, walking with long 
and easy strides. The dogs looked a rough- 
and-ready lot, but on this particular morn¬ 
ing showed themselves of little use; at any 
rate they put up nothing. 
But Kermit had a bit of deserved good 
luck. While the main body of us went 
down the river-bed, he and McMillan, with 
a few natives, beat up a side ravine, down 
the middle of which ran the usual dry water¬ 
course fringed with patches of brush. In 
one of these they put up a leopard, and saw 
it slinking forward ahead of them through 
the bushes. Then they lost sight of it, and 
came to the conclusion that it was in a large 
thicket. So Kermit went on one side of it 
and McMillan on the other, and the beaters 
approached to try and get the leopard out. 
Of course none of the beaters had guns; 
their function was merely to make a dis¬ 
turbance and rouse the game, and they were 
cautioned on no account to get into danger. 
