The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-07-01

hyenas, high backed, hairy, hideous, tear ing at some carrion probably left by wandering lion. The next morning l woke up at dawn, so as not to miss one instant of the wonderful Barnums show which the Uganda railway gives you.
 It Is like a reversal of the usual cir GUS procession. We were in the cages moving through the land, while the ami
 malls we used to watch in their cages were now outside living their lives and
 gazing at us as we passed There was
 hardly moment of the day when there
 was not in sight some strange creature,
 either herds of zebras or gnus or gazelles
 of many kinds, or else some ostriches
 seesawing away or a solitary secretary
 bird with its fantastic crest or bald headed vnllture flying heavily from one
 low tree ito another.
 In the afternoon I was playing game
 of bridge under conditions sufficiently
 curious to be noted. Our table was a box built for a monkey but at that moment
 held only two giant sleeping tortoises while the monkey sat on the professor s shoulder. Outside the sun was declining ! in a golden haze whom suddenly we saw five or six giraffes siding off through some scrub thorns. Their gait as awkward as it is in the circus line of march, while their long necks seemed as much in the way ever. Hardly had we got over this excitement and settled down to our game again-I had just made it mo tru1nps'-When we saw to the right of the track huge lloness bound
 ing along not seventy feet away, keep ing up easily with the train, which was proceeding leisurely.
 i As she seemed so interested in us the | train drew up for a standstill, and, see ! train drew up for a standstill, and, see | ing this, the lioness crouched down in q
 little clump of grass In plain sight. | The men in the train rushed to get out | their guns. The excitement was intense | with every one except the lloness. So | agitated at the unexpected sight were the | hunters that they could not find their ammunition.
 We had all got on the steps of the train 1 and every eye was fixed on the dark form | crouched sixty feet away. No one was ] frightened-though had the beast chosen l she might have leaped on the crowd and 1 dragged off a good supper before the l guns were ready. Much haste makes little | speed, and before the ammunition turn 1 ed up in a few minutes-it seemed much | longer to the breathless onlookers-she | turned and bounding across the track be-
 hind the train, disappeared in the bush | Bitterly disappointed, we piled into the
 train again and continued our journey. | A little while later at dusk a big lion | probably her mate, was seen on the other
 side of the track just before we pulled | into the next station. This station, curi- | ously enough, was named Simba, which is
 the native word for lion. On the station | platform lay the skin of a lion shot a | day or so before. So plentiful are the | creatures in that neighborhood that after nightfall those on one side of the track
 in the station never dare to cross to the i few shanties that lie on the other side twenty paces away. What became of our bridge game I don't know; but 1t is not i often that a mo trump" hand is inter- rupted by lion hunt