viH THE LION'S ROAR 155 



some lonely pool or river, thus heard a troop of lions 

 roar in my immediate vicinity, so close indeed, some- 

 times, that I could hear the hiss of their breath after 

 each purr ; and though it is now the fashion to 

 depreciate the courage of the lion, the power of his 

 voice, and everything else concerning him, yet it is 

 a fact that, under such circumstances, several of them 

 roaring in unison will make the whole air in their 

 immediate vicinity vibrate and tremble, and I know 

 of nothing in nature more awe-inspiring, or on a 

 dark niffht more calculated to make a man feel 

 nervous. As a matter of fact, however, according to 

 my experience, there is very little to fear from lions 

 when they roar freely, as they only do so after they 

 have satisfied their hunger, whereas, when on the 

 look-out for a meal, they are as still as the grave, or 

 only give vent to a low purring growl, which, though 

 uttered close at hand, seems to come from a long 

 way off. Such at least has been the case on the 

 occasions when they have attacked my oxen at nights, 

 or whilst prowling about trying to do so, but kept 

 off by the dogs. On the present occasion these lions 

 soon passed our camp and continued up the river, 

 their voices growing fainter and fainter, till at length 

 they died away in the distance, and I fell asleep. 



Before sunrise the next morning, leaving the camp 

 in charge of my two youngest Kafir boys, I started 

 into the jungle with the rest in search of elephants, 

 and had not proceeded 300 yards before crossing 

 the fresh spoor of two bulls that had drunk during 

 the night close to our camp, but so noiselessly as not 

 to have awakened either myself or any of my 

 Kafirs. We at once followed them, and they led us 

 for two or three hours through the thick jungle, 

 going westwards, almost parallel with the course of 



