Leaving the porters to watch the two lions, we followed the third lion that had been seen in the valley. He had not gone far and we soon found him, but too far away to get a shot. For an hour we followed him, but he finally disappeared and could not be located again.
It was sundown when our porters reached camp with the two lions, and it was then that we ate our long-deferred luncheon.
A week later, while marching from the Tana River to the Zeka River, Mr. and Mrs. Akeley and I came across a large lion, accompanied by a lioness. They were first seen moving away across a low sloping ridge of the plains within a couple of miles of where we had killed the lion and lioness a week before. We followed them and came up with them after a brisk walk of ten minutes. Both were hiding in the grass near the crest of the slope, and we could see their ears and eyes above the long grass. We crouched down a hundred yards away and the lion rose to see where we had gone. Mrs. Akeley fired and missed, but her second shot pierced his brain and he fell like a log. We expected a charge from the lioness and waited until she should declare herself. But she did not appear and her whereabouts remained an anxious mystery until she was finally seen several hundred yards away making her way slowly up a distant hill. Half-way up she sat down and watched us as we made our way cautiously in the grass to where her mate lay as he fell, stone dead. We afterward followed her, but she escaped from view and could not be located. This lion was the largest we had seen and measured nine feet from tip to tip.
This was our last experience with lions in the Trans-Tana country. After that we went up in the elephant country on Mount Kenia, but that is a story all in itself.
Lion hunting is the best kind of African hunting in one respect. One feels no self-reproach in having killed a lion, for there is always the comforting thought that by killing one lion you have saved the lives of three hundred other animals. Every lion exacts an annual toll of at least that number of zebras, hartebeests, or other forms of antelopes, all of which are powerless to defend themselves against the great creature that creeps upon them in cover of darkness. So a lion hunter may consider himself something of a benefactor.
CHAPTER VII
ON THE TANA RIVER, THE HOME OF THE RHINO. THE TIMID ARE FRIGHTENED, THE DANGEROUS KILLED, AND OTHERS PHOTOGRAPHED. MOVING PICTURES OF A RHINO CHARGE
Down on the Tana River the rhinos are more common than in any other known section of Africa. In two weeks we saw over one hundred—perhaps two hundred—of them—so many, in fact, that one of the chief diversions of the day was to count rhinos. One day we counted twenty-six, another day nineteen, and by the time we left the district rhinos had become such fixtures in the landscape as to cause only casual comment. Perhaps there were some repeaters, ones that were counted twice, but even allowing for that there were still some left. We saw big ones and little ones, old ones and young ones, and middle-aged ones; ones with long ears, short horns, double horns, and single horns; black ones and red ones—in fact, all the kinds of rhinos that are resident in British East Africa. One had an ear gone and another had a crook in his tail. If we had stayed another week we might have got out a Tana River Rhino Directory, with addresses and tree numbers. We studied them fore and aft, from in front of trees and from behind them, from close range and long range, over our shoulders, and through our cameras, every way whereby a conscientious lover of life and nature can study a prominent member of the Mammalia. We called the place Rhino Park because the country looks like a beautiful park studded with splendid trees and dotted with rhinos.
