Where the thorny brake and thicket
  Densely fill the interspace
Of the trees, through whose thick branches
  Never sunshine lights the place,
There the lion dwells, a monarch,
  Mightiest among the brutes;
There his right to reign supremest
  Never one his claim disputes. 
There he layeth down to slumber,
  Having slain and ta’en his fill;
There he roameth, there be croucheth,
  As it suits his lordly will.

We camped but a few yards from just such a place as the poet describes.  The herd-keeper who attended the goats and donkeys, soon after our arrival in camp, drove the animals to water, and in order to obtain it they travelled through a tunnel in the brake, caused by elephants and rhinoceros.  They had barely entered the dark cavernous passage, when a black-spotted leopard sprang, and fastened its fangs in the neck of one of the donkeys, causing it, from the pain, to bray hideously.  Its companions set up such a frightful chorus, and so lashed their heels in the air at the feline marauder, that the leopard bounded away through the brake, as if in sheer dismay at the noisy cries which the attack had provoked.  The donkey’s neck exhibited some frightful wounds, but the animal was not dangerously hurt.

Thinking that possibly I might meet with an adventure with a lion or a leopard in that dark belt of tall trees, under whose impenetrable shade grew the dense thicket that formed such admirable coverts for the carnivorous species, I took a stroll along the awesome place with the gunbearer, Kalulu, carrying an extra gun, and a further supply of ammunition.  We crept cautiously along, looking keenly into the deep dark dens, the entrances of which were revealed to us, as we journeyed, expectant every moment to behold the reputed monarch of the brake and thicket, bound forward to meet us, and I took a special delight in picturing, in my imagination, the splendor and majesty of the wrathful brute, as he might stand before me.  I peered closely into every dark opening, hoping to see the deadly glitter of the great angry eyes, and the glowering menacing front of the lion as he would regard me.  But, alas! after an hour’s search for adventure, I had encountered nothing, and I accordingly waxed courageous, and crept into one of these leafy, thorny caverns, and found myself shortly standing under a canopy of foliage that was held above my head fully a hundred feet by the shapely and towering stems of the royal mvule.  Who can imagine the position?  A smooth lawn-like glade; a dense and awful growth of impenetrable jungle around us; those stately natural pillars—­a glorious phalanx of royal trees, bearing at such sublime heights vivid green masses of foliage, through which no single sun-ray penetrated, while at our feet babbled the primeval brook, over smooth pebbles, in soft tones befitting the sacred quiet of the scene!  Who could have desecrated this solemn, holy harmony of nature?