clambered to points of vantage on rocks and the tops of small
bushes: They all took a good long look at me. Then they told me
what they thought about me personally, the fact of my being
there, and the rude way I had startled them. Their remarks were
neither complimentary nor refined. The old men, in especial, got
quite profane, and screamed excited billingsgate. Finally they
all stopped at once, dropped on all fours, and loped away, their
ridiculous long tails curved in a half arc. Then for the first
time I noticed that, under cover of the insults, the women and
children had silently retired. Once more I was left to the
familiar gentle bird calls, and the vast silence of the
wilderness beyond.

The second picture, also, was a view from a height, but of a
totally different character. It was also, perhaps, more typical
of a greater part of East Equatorial Africa. Four of us were
hunting lions with natives-both wild and tame-and a scratch
pack of dogs. More of that later. We had rummaged around all the
morning without any results; and now at noon had climbed to the
top of a butte to eat lunch and look abroad.

Our butte ran up a gentle but accelerating slope to a peak of big
rounded rocks and slabs sticking out boldly from the soil of the
hill. We made ourselves comfortable each after his fashion. The
gunbearers leaned against rocks and rolled cigarettes. The
savages squatted on their heels, planting their spears
ceremonially in front of them. One of my friends lay on his back,
resting a huge telescope over his crossed feet. With this he
purposed seeing any lion that moved within ten miles. None of the
rest of us could ever make out anything through the fearsome