Dragged the various
articles of luggage to the same place of safety. The fire now
approached within about 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, but 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 an 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.
