MEETING WITH JACKSON. 
i 97 
the most ungainly brutes when at rest, become really 
graceful if fairly extended ; their action, when going 
fast, is easy and even, and the humpy heads give their 
necks the appearance of being arched like that of a 
well-bred horse, while their flowing tails stream well 
out behind. It is, I believe, from their resemblance 
to the nobler animal, when galloping, that they are 
called nyumbu, “wild horses,” by the Swahili. 
I met Jackson out shooting one day, and learnt from 
him that his camp was only some seven miles farther 
down-stream. We sat down on opposite sides of the 
river and had a long chat and compared notes. He 
had done pretty well, having killed fifty-five head since 
January 17th, including nine buffalo, six eland, some 
water-buck, wildebeest, mpallah, as well as an ostrich, 
a leopard, and a cheetah. He told me that he had 
fallen in with some forty Masai warriors, who appeared 
to be very friendly, and confirmed the report that they 
had a large camp and many cattle about three miles 
south of his position. The heat at this time was very 
oppressive, generally 95° in the shade, and the atmos¬ 
phere was heavily laden with moisture as we had fre¬ 
quent showers of rain and thunderstorms. 
I now come to one of my great days, when I shot my 
first and only lion. I had started out to the left of 
the river and was skirting the far side of the plain, in 
the hopes of coming across buffalo near the edge of the 
bush. As I went along I put up, from under a tree, 
an enormous leopard, about the size of a moderate 
lioness, and I put in a snap shot, with no apparent 
