BATTLE BETWEEN LIONS AND HYENAS. 145 
as we approached the donkey, which was standing only a 
o from 
couple of hundred yards from the zareba, trembling 
head to foot, but quite uninjured. 
The lions appeared to have followed him only for sport, 
not being hungry; or else they intended to play with him 
for a while, as a cat would with a mouse. However that 
may be, we brought the donkey back, and fastened him as 
securely as we could to his old post; but our sensations 
were not at all pleasant while we were engaged at this 
work, as it had grown quite dark, and we knew we were 
surrounded by lions. We safely entered the zareba, never- 
theless, and shut ourselves in before any of the animals 
appeared again. 
I now spent a more interesting night, probably, than it 
will ever again be my good fortune to experience. The 
lions came directly to the zareba, creeping close up to it 
on all sides, except where the hole was made opposite the 
donkey. I could not see them to shoot at when they were 
so close, as the zareba walls were too thick. I tried, by 
stretching myself flat on the ground and holding my rifle 
in front of me, to see if I could get a shot at a lion’s head 
from some opening in the zareba; but although I could hear 
the brute sniff and growl, and almost feel his breath, as he 
also lay outstretched, with his nose touching the wall of the 
enclosure, and only two feet from my nose, I could make 
out no object at which to fire. As I lay this way quietly, 
scarcely moving a muscle, with several lions at once sniff- 
ing around the zareba, I could not help feeling that the 
beasts might take a fancy to jump in. But soon their 
attention was called to another quarter. A pack of between 
thirty to forty hyenas made a sudden attack upon the lions. 
No one who has not experienced it can have any idea of 
the noise that a lot of hyenas can make when they are 
engaged in a fight. Their howls change to deep, loud 
10 
