He was a fine
trophy, and we at once set the boys to preparing it and taking
the meat. In the meantime we sauntered down to look at the
stream. It was a small rapid affair, but in heavy papyrus, with
sparse trees, and occasional thickets, and dry hard banks. The
papyrus should make a good lurking place for almost anything; but
the few points of access to the water failed to show many
interesting tracks. Nevertheless we decided to explore a short
distance.
For an hour we walked among high thornbushes, over baking hot
earth. We saw two or three dik-dik and one of the giraffes. At
that time it had become very hot, and the sun was bearing down on
us as with the weight of a heavy hand. The air had the scorching,
blasting quality of an opened furnace door. Our mouths were
getting dry and sticky in that peculiar stage of thirst on which
no luke-warm canteen water in necessarily limited quantity has
any effect. So we turned back, picked up the men with the
waterbuck, and plodded on down the little stream, or, rather, on
the red-hot dry valley bottom outside the stream's course, to
where the syces were waiting with our horses. We mounted with
great thankfulness. It was now eleven o'clock, and we considered
our day as finished.
The best way for a distance seemed to follow the course of the
tributary stream to its point of junction with our river. We rode
along, rather relaxed in the suffocating heat. F. was nearest the
stream. At one point it freed itself of trees and brush and ran
clear, save for low papyrus, ten feet down below a steep eroded
bank. F. looked over and uttered a startled exclamation. I
spurred my horse forward to see.
Below us, about fifteen yards away, was the carcass of a
waterbuck half hidden in the foot-high grass. A lion and two
lionesses stood upon it, staring up at us with great yellow eyes.
That picture is a very vivid one in my memory, for those were the
first wild lions I had ever seen. My most lively impression was
of their unexpected size. They seemed to bulk fully a third
larger than my expectation.
The magnificent beasts stood only long enough to see clearly what
had disturbed them, then turned, and in two bounds had gained the
shelter of the thicket.
Now the habit in Africa is to let your gunbearers carry all your
guns. You yourself stride along hand free. It is an English idea,
and is pretty generally adopted out there by every one, of
whatever nationality. They will explain it to you by saying that
in such a climate a man should do only necessary physical work,
and that a good gunbearer will get a weapon into your hand so
quickly and in so convenient a position that you will lose no
time.
