XII GEORGE WESTBEECH 255 



when he stood up after, it was merely a spasmodic 

 action, for the shot that Dorehill gave him was only 

 a flesh wound through the thighs, and the last shot 

 that Horner gave him in the head as he lay on the 

 ground had passed beneath the brain pan. By the 

 time that I had skinned the lion, the waggons came 

 up, and I then sent all the spare Kafirs to fetch the 

 meat and head of the roan antelope cow that I had 

 shot the preceding evening, telling them to take 

 my horse's spoor backwards until they came to the 

 dead animal. A little after mid-day they returned, 

 telling us that they had found three lions at the carcase, 

 or, to speak more correctly, at what had once been 

 the carcase, for they had left but little of it, except 

 bones. Thinking that the lions might still be there, 

 Grandy, Horner, and myself at once saddled up and 

 went to see ; but we had our ride for nothing, as 

 the brutes had prudently retired, and we found 

 nothing but vultures picking the bones they had left. 

 They had also pulled the head out of the thick 

 bushy tree in which I had hidden it, and quite 

 spoiled it. 



During the two following days, Dorehill and I 

 shot three roan antelopes and four giraffes, two of 

 the latter very fat. We then stood over two days, 

 drying the meat and rendering down the fat ; and 

 on the following day inspanned and started for the 

 settlement, which we reached on November 28, after 

 an absence of just four weeks. 



Here for the first time I met Mr. George 

 Westbeech, the well-known Zambesi trader, whom, 

 curiously enough, I had never before seen, although 

 upon several occasions during the last four years I 

 had often been in his immediate neighbourhood. 

 Mr. Westbeech is one of those many English and 



