Our march this evening was through the most beautiful country I had ever seen in Africa.  We skirted an endless range of well-wooded stony mountains lying on our left, while to our right the country at first sloped gently off, and then stretched away into a level green forest, (occasionally interspersed with open glades,) boundless as the ocean.  This green forest was, however, relieved in one direction by a chain of excessively bold, detached, well-wooded, rocky, pyramidal mountains, which stood forth in grand relief.  In advance the picture was bounded by forest and mountain; one bold acclivity, in shape of a dome, standing prominent among its fellows.  It was a lovely evening:  the sky, overcast and gloomy, threw an interesting, wild, mysterious coloring over the landscape.  I gazed forth upon the romantic scene before me with intense delight, and felt melancholy and sorrowful at passing so fleetingly through it, and could not help shouting out, as I marched along, “Where is the coward who would not dare to die for such a land?”

In the morning we held for a fountain some miles ahead, in a gorge in the mountains.  As we approached the fountain, and were passing close under a steep, rocky, hillside, well wooded to its summit, I unexpectedly beheld a lion stealing up the rocky face, and, halting behind a tree, he stood overhauling us for some minutes.  I resolved to give him battle, and, seizing my rifle, marched against him, followed by Carey carrying a spare gun, and by three men leading my dogs, now reduced to eight.  When we got close in to the base of the mountain, we found ourselves enveloped in dense jungle, which extended half-way to its summit, and entirely obscured from our eyes objects which were quite apparent from the wagons, I slipped my dogs, however, which, after snuffing about, took right up the steep face on the spoor of the lions, for there was a troop of them—­a lion and three lionesses.

The people at the wagons saw the chase in perfection.  When the lions observed the dogs coming on, they took right up, and three of them crossed over the sky ridge.  The dogs, however, turned one rattling old lioness, which came rumbling down through the cover, close past me.  I ran to meet her, and she came to bay in an open spot near the base of the mountain, whither I quickly followed, and coming up within thirty yards, bowled her over with my first shot, which broke her back.  My second entered her shoulder; and, fearing that she might hurt any of the dogs, as she still evinced signs of life, I finished her with a third in the breast.  The bellies of all the four lions were much distended by some game they had been gorging, no doubt a buffalo, as a large herd started out of the jungle immediately under the spot where the noble beasts were first disturbed.

Showers of rain fell every hour throughout the day, so I employed my men in making feldt-schoens, or, in other words, African brogues for me.  These shoes were worthy of a sportsman, being light, yet strong, and were entirely composed of the skins of game of my shooting.  The soles were made of either buffalo or cameleopard; the front part, perhaps, of koodoo, or hartebeest, or bushbuck, and the back of the shoe of lion, or hyaena, or sable antelope, while the rheimpy or thread with which the whole was sewed, consisted of a thin strip of the skin of a steinbok.