A TRIP TO TA VEIT A . 
223 
cries—screams, barks, and guttural murmurs. Look¬ 
ing in that direction I was able to make out a small 
party of baboons, who had come down to drink, and 
evidently mistook the stealthy noises I had made for 
the approach of their relentless enemy, the leopard. 
Though they peered uneasily into the gloom, and did not 
turn at once to run, I would not shoot, because I did 
not wish to frighten more important game that might 
be approaching; and, moreover, because, except for 
scientific purposes, I think it is so sad to kill a monkey. 
To see a baboon in its death-throes causes me almost as 
much pain as if he were a member of my own species. 
However, my forbearance was not duly rewarded. 
A few small things, probably civets, cats, or jackals, 
crept noiselessly to the water-side and drank uneasily, 
but I held my hand, deeming it mockery to blow them 
to fragments with an elephant’s bullet. Here and 
there in the open a large form seemed to hesitate about 
passing through the tunnel where I was concealed, and 
I always waited, unwilling to risk an uncertain aim 
and a distant shot for the hope of certain slaughter 
when they should defile past my lair. But they came 
not, and disappeared into the outer gloom. What was 
the reason ? I asked myself. They could not see me 
behind my screen of boughs, and I sat long in noiseless 
immobility. The fact that they divined the presence 
of a human being by scent never entered my head, and 
I forgot that the wind blew from me towards them, and 
carried to their powers of smell sufficient evidence to 
deter them from approaching any nearer a suspicious 
spot. Yet I knew that this drinking-place had been 
much frequented the previous night, and I could now 
hear a mingled chorus of animal cries from distant 
bends of the river, showing that the thirsty creatures 
of the wilds had come to satisfy their thirst. 1 
