level as a floor now turned into a tremendously wide and placid ground
swell. As a consequence we were always going imperceptibly up and up and
up to a long-delayed sky-line, or tipping as gently down the other side
of the wave. From crest to crest of these long billows measured two or
three miles. The vertical distance in elevation from trough to top was
perhaps not over fifty to one hundred feet.

Slowly we rode along the shallow grass and brush ravines in the troughs
of the low billows, while the dogs worked eagerly in and out of cover,
and our handful of savages cast stones and shouted. Occasionally we
divided forces, and beat the length of a hill, two of us lying in wait
at one end for the possible lion, the rest sweeping the sides and
summits. Many animals came bounding along, but no lions. Then Harold
Hill, unlimbering a huge, many-jointed telescope, would lie flat on his
back, and sight the fearsome instrument over his crossed feet, in a
general bird's-eye view of the plains for miles around. While he was at
it we were privileged to look about us, less under the burden of
responsibility. We could make out the game as little, light-coloured
dots and speckles, thousands upon thousands of them, thicker than cattle
ever grazed on the open range, and as far as the eye could make them
out, and then a glance through our glasses picked them up again for mile
after mile. Even the six-power could go no farther. The imagination was
left the vision of more leagues of wild animals even to the half-guessed
azure mountains--and beyond. I had seen abundant game elsewhere in
Africa, but nothing like the multitudes inhabiting the Kapiti Plains at
that time of year. In other seasons this locality is comparatively
deserted.

The glass revealing nothing in our line, we rode again to the lower
levels, and again took up our slow, painstaking search.