rilles; while my wife and Mahomet dragged the
various articles of luggage to the same place of safety.
The fire now approached within abont sixty yards,
and dragging out the iron pins, I let the tent fall to
the ground. The Arabs had swept a line like a highroad
perfectly clean, and they were still tearing away
the grass, when they were suddenly obliged to rush
back as the flames arrived.
Almost instantaneously the smoke blew over us, hut
the fire had expired upon meeting the cleared ground.
I now gave them a little lecture upon obedience to
orders; and from that day, their first act upon halting
for the night was to clear away the grass, lest I should
repeat the entertainment. In countries that are
covered with dry grass, it should be an invariable
rule to clear the ground around the . camp before night;
hostile natives will frequently fire the grass to windward
of a party, or careless servants may leave their
pipes upon the ground, which fanned by the wind
would quickly create a blaze. That night the mountain
afforded a beautiful appearance as the flames
ascended the steep sides, and ran flickering up the
deep gullies with a brilliant light.
We were standing outside the tent admiring the
scene, which perfectly illuminated the neighbourhood,
when suddenly an apparition of a lion and lioness
stood for a instant before us at about fifteen yards
distance, and then disappeared over the blackened
ground before I had time to snatch a rifle from the
tent. No doubt they had been disturbed from the
mountain by the fire, and had mistaken their way in
the country so recently changed from high grass to
black ashes. In this locality I considered it advisable
to keep a vigilant watch during the night, and the
Arabs were.told off for that purpose,
A little before sunrise I accompanied the howartis,
or hippopotamus hunters, for a day’s sport. There
were numbers of hippos in this part of the river, and
we were not long before we found a herd. The hunters
failed in several attempts to harpoon them, but they
succeeded in stalking a crocodile after a most peculiar
fashion. This large beast was lying upon a sandbank
on the opposite margin of the river, close to a bed of
rushes.
The howartis, having studied the wind, ascended for
about a quarter of a mile, and then swam across the
river, harpoon in hand. The two men reached the
opposite bank, beneath which they alternately waded
or swam down the stream towards the spot upon which
the crocodile was lying. Thus advancing under cover
of the steep bank, or floating with the stream in
deep places, and crawling like crocodiles across the
shallows, the two hunters at length arrived at the
bank of rushes, on the other side of which the
monster was basking asleep upon the sand. They
were now about waist-deep, and they kept close
to the rushes with their harpoons raised, ready to
cast the moment they should pass the rush bed and
come in view of the crocodile. Thus steadily advancing,
they had just arrived at the corner within