of the animal world, which, though unseen, are often watching travellers in these solitudes.  Another night, when we were encamped in the very heart of a rumoured “lion country,” ourselves and our beasts securely protected by an unusually high and thick “skerm,” we were, to our regret, left undisturbed; but the aforementioned Scotch cart, which rumbled away from the sleeping camp about midnight, had a series of adventures with Leo felis.  Sniffing the fat oxen, no less than three lions followed the waggon all night, charging close up at times, and finally causing the oxen to stampede, in consequence of which, instead of finding the precious vehicle, containing grain for carriers and forage for horses, at the next outspan, we did not come up with it till evening, nearly thirty miles farther on, when we learnt the adventures it had had.

The truth regarding lion-shooting in these parts is, that the animals are exceedingly difficult to locate, and the finding of them is a matter of pure luck.  The traveller may, of course, meet a lion on the road by broad daylight; but many experienced hunters, who count their slain lions by the dozen, will tell you they were years in the country before they ever saw the kings of beasts, and these are men who do not belittle the danger incurred in hunting them.  One old hunter is supposed to have said to an enthusiastic newcomer, who had heard of a lion in the vicinity, and immediately asked the old stager if he were going after it:  “I have not lost any lions, therefore I am not looking for any”; but, all the same, to kill one or more fine specimens will ever remain the summit of the ambition of the hunter, and unquestionably the spice of danger is one of the attractions.

At the time of which I write the township of Kalomo consisted of about twenty white people, including the Administrator, his secretary and staff; the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Accountant, who controlled the purse; a doctor, whose time was fairly well taken up; an aspiring light of the legal profession, who made and interpreted the laws; and, finally, the gallant Colonel and officers of the North-Western Rhodesia Native Police, a smart body of 380 natives, officered by eleven or twelve Englishmen.  To Colonel Colin Harding, C.M.G., was due the credit of recruiting and drilling this smart corps, and it was difficult to believe that these soldierly-looking men, very spruce in their dark blue tunics and caps, from which depend enormous red tassels, were only a short time ago idling away their days in uninviting native kraals.

I was much impressed in a Kalomo house with the small details of a carefully arranged dinner-table, adorned with flowers and snowy linen; the cooking was entirely done by black boys, and of these the “Chinde” boys from the Portuguese settlements are much sought after, and cannot be excelled as cooks or servants, so thoroughly do the Portuguese understand the training of natives.  The staple meat was buck of all kinds;