90 



AFRICAN NATURE NOTES chap. 



on the second trip — I was alone in 1891 — my com- 

 panions, who had not had much experience in the 

 veld, often thought the lions were very near us, I 

 am sure they were never within a mile of our camp. 

 When a party of lions are together, perhaps on 

 their way to drink after a meal, one of them will 

 halt and breathe out from its expanded lungs a full- 

 toned note, which rolls afar across the silent wilder- 

 ness. As it draws in its breath for another effort, 

 a second member of the party emulates the leader, 

 and then a third, a fourth, and a fifth perhaps will 

 join in, and all of them then seem to vie with 

 one another as to which can produce the greatest 

 volume of sound, and it is a fact that at the climax 

 of the roaring of a troop of lions the whole air 

 seems to vibrate and tremble. Of a sudden the 

 grand booming, vibrating notes cease, and are im- 

 mediately succeeded by a series of short, deep- 

 toned, coughing grunts, which gradually die away 

 to a mere hissing expulsion of the breath. Then 

 not a sound is heard until, after an interval of a 

 few minutes, the grand competitive roaring peals 

 across the lonely veld once more. During some 

 few out of the thousands of nights I have lain on 

 the ground, beneath the stars, in the interior of 

 South Africa, I have heard lions roaring pretty 

 near my camp ; but never quite so near as one dark 

 night in 1879. I was returning from the Chobi 

 river to where I had left my waggons in the 

 Mababi country, and was alone with five Kafirs. 

 One evening just at dusk we reached the last water- 

 hole in the Sunta river. We had made a long 

 march in intense heat, as it was the month of 

 November, and were all so tired that we made 

 no camp nor collected much firewood, but just lay 

 down on the sandy ground round a very small fire. 

 Not long after dark we heard a troop of lions roar- 

 ing in the distance ; presently they roared again 



