146 THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. 
roars, very nearly equal in strength to the roars of lions. 
There were sudden rushes on the part of both the lions 
and hyenas in the present case, terminating in ferocious 
battles, in which it was hard to distinguish the roars of 
the lions from the noises made by the hyenas. Several 
times the encounters took place in front of the hole in 
my zareba, too far away for me to do any shooting; but 
I could easily make out the forms of the animals in the 
starlight. The scene was wild and interesting in the 
extreme, while the roars of the animals thrilled every nerve. 
But hush! what was that? I heard a growl in the 
bushes in front of my peep-hole, and behold, to my joy, a 
splendid lioness waiked out, only thirty yards in front of me! 
I took as steady aim as I could with my eight-bore, after hav- 
ing fastened a little piece of white paper to the beadsight, 
and pulled the trigger. Bang! and then what a roar! She 
was not dead, but I knew she would be mine — or I would 
be hers, one or the other — later on. The bullet had struck 
her just a little too far forward, and lower down than I had 
aimed, and had broken her shoulder to pieces. Witha 
spring she was back in the bushes, where she spent the rest 
of the night growling and snarling, the sounds only dying 
away as daylight appeared. 
In the morning, having sent for some boys to drive the 
animal, I started around to take up my position on one 
side of a mass of bushes, where I thought the beast was 
concealed, when suddenly the lioness rose from the thick 
grass with a growl, not more than seven yards ahead of 
me. Before I could take aim, she was back again in the 
bushes with a mighty leap. It was most fortunate that her 
spring was in the opposite direction from me, for by all 
odds a wounded lioness is the worst beast to encounter in 
Africa. 
I took my .577 now, as I could shoot more quickly and 
