ii8 Wild Beasts 



deal as likely to intimidate th ; lion, we passed right 

 through to the other side, and though the ground had been 

 beaten quite as well as it was possible *'or anything smaller 

 than elephants to do, no vestige of the animal had been 

 seen. 



" Hardly, however, had the men begun to cluster out 

 upon the open, before there was a shouting from the 

 extreme left, which, when passed on through the strag- 

 glers, soon resolved itself into the lion having been seen 

 there. Of course there was a general rush in that direc- 

 tion, which I accompanied, until I met a man who had 

 come from the spot, and who said the brute had just 

 showed itself and turned back. On hearing this I stopped 

 those nearest to me and sent them to collect every one 

 they could find, and in a few minutes two-thirds of the 

 people had come around me. I then divided them into 

 two bodies ; the larger, led by all my hunters, except one, 

 who remained with me, I sent to enter the jungle on the 

 outer side and to beat through it, shouting and firing their 

 guns ; the other I took myself down to a stream which, at 

 four or five hundred yards distance, fronted the spot where 

 the lion had shown himself, and made them lie down in 

 the bushes that lined it. About fifty men I stationed 

 round the jungle, telling them never to cease making a 

 noise, and I also removed the spies from in front of us. 



" It took a long time to do this, and longer for the men 

 to begin to beat, and we waited for an hour by the stream 

 bank before anything happened. I had left my place and 

 gone to drink, and as I turned to come back, a stir and 

 rustle among the bushes where the men lay concealed 



