African Game Trails 
267 
fires against which we were guarding came 
over a low hill crest into view, beyond the 
line of our back fire. It was a fine sight to 
see the long lines of leaping, wavering flames 
advance toward one another. An hour of 
two passed before they met, half a mile from 
camp. Wherever they came together there 
splendid to see the line of flames, leaping 
fifty feet into the air as they worked across 
the serried masses of tall papyrus. When 
they came toward the water they kindled 
the surface of the bay into a ruddy glare, 
while above them the crimson smoke clouds 
drifted slowly to leeward. The fire did not 
Mr. Roosevelt with kob, shot at rhino camp. 
From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt. 
would be a moment’s spurt of roaring, 
crackling fire, and then it would vanish, 
leaving at that point a blank in the circle of 
flame. Gradually the blanks in the lines 
extended, until the fire thus burnt itself 
out, and darkness succeeded the bright red 
glare. 
The fires continued to burn in our neigh¬ 
borhood for a couple of days. Finally one 
evening the great beds of papyrus across 
the bay caught fire. After nightfall it was 
die out until toward morning; and then, 
behind it, we heard the grand booming 
chorus of a party of lions. They were full 
fed, and roaring as they went to their day 
beds; each would utter a succession of 
roars which grew louder and louder until 
they fairly thundered, and then died gradu¬ 
ally away, until they ended in a succession 
of sighs and grunts. 
As the fires burned to and fro across the 
country birds of many kinds came to the 
