With Flashlight and Rifle -* 



Panoani River. Lions had been showing" themselves for 

 some days in the vicinity ot the camp. Almost every 

 night I had heard them roaring, chiefly at certain spots 

 by the river. I had succeeded in getting a number of 

 the striped hya?nas which 1 had niyself discovered. I had 

 set traps — small, but strong, Weber's iron traps — in 

 order to catch " kinguguas," as the natives call hyaenas 

 and jackals. It happened that an old lion stepped 

 upon one of these and caught himselt by one of the claws 

 of the front paw, breaking the iron chain, of course, at 

 once. Evidently he had not got the iron off his paw, 

 his efforts to do so probably causing him too much 

 pain. So he had taken himself off with the iron clinging 

 to him, dragging his leg, step by step, for a couple of 

 hours, probably into the thorn-thicket bordering upon the 

 steep declivity of the Nyika. Little by little he had 

 succeeded in almost destroying the snare with his teeth, 

 but the spring and guard still clattered round his claw. 



Early next morning we looked for his tracks, and 

 followed them up through the thorn-thicket with great diffi- 

 culty, expecting every moment to come upon the slipped- 

 off snare. Suddenly I heard, straight in front of me, 

 the deep growling of the infuriated lion, and at the same 

 moment the beast started off afresh with the snare dangling 

 beside him. I was surprised that the powerful beast could 

 not shake it off it was so small. Following him, always 

 with the utmost caution, through the extraordinarily dense 

 underwood, I got quite close to him five or six times, but 

 each time he made away before I could get a shot at him. 



Several times I actually caught sight of him straight 



3/8 



