278 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



Upon their shouting and waving their blankets, the 

 beast left the horse and made good its retreat in the 

 darkness. Jordan, though badly bitten on the back 

 of the neck just behind the head, and scratched about 

 the throat, had not sustained any very material injury, 

 but the wounds would not heal up, and eight months 

 afterwards, when I last saw him, they were still 

 sloughing. After this the fires were kept up, and 

 nothing further occurred to disturb the peace. The 

 following morning Dr. Crook found the hole in the 

 fence through which the lioness had crept. Here he 

 set two guns with strings tied on their triggers and 

 brought across the gap in the fence in such a way 

 that if the lioness were to return by the same path 

 during the coming night she would in all probability 

 shoot herself. When evening came, Ruthven and 

 two colonial boys (waggon drivers) did not turn in, 

 but sat up round a fire, hoping to get a shot at the 

 lioness should she return and make an attack from 

 another c^uarter. It was ten o'clock by the doctor's 

 watch when old Umzobo, a Matabele man, who was 

 in charge of my property whilst I was away hunting, 

 and who was at that moment sitting by a fire along- 

 side of my waggon, said to a young Kafir near him, 

 " Blow up the fire, I hear something moving outside 

 the fence." The boy was in the act of doing as he 

 had been told, and the fire was just blazing up, when 

 the honess suddenly appeared in their midst and 

 seized old Umzobo from in front by the leg, making 

 her teeth meet behind the shin-bones. With great 

 presence of mind, the old fellow forced his hands 

 into her mouth one on each side, when she let go 

 and seized Impewan, another Kafir of mine, by the 

 fleshy part of the buttock, just as he was preparing 

 to make tracks. Feeling an unpleasant sensation 



