MY ACQUAINTANCE WITH LIONS 67 
fired again, and again the bushes moved toward us. 
Finally the old fellow was so close to the edge of the 
brush that while we couldn’t see him he undoubtedly 
could see us. He stood looking out on thirty black 
men and two white men in front of a great fire—a 
crowd of his enemies. The path was not blocked in 
any other direction. He looked us over carefully 
for fully five minutes and then of his own volition, 
with a great roar, he charged out of the brush and 
up from the pot hole. Halfway up the slope the 
fatal bullet hit him. He was killed charging his 
enemies and without thought of retreat—the first 
black-maned lion ever shot in British East Africa. 
He was old and had been through various vicissi- 
tudes. At one time he had had a leg broken but it 
had healed perfectly. The tip of his tail was gone 
also. But for all that he was a great specimen. 
These two instances are fair examples of the usual 
method of hunting lions in British East Africa. Rid- 
ing after them on horseback might be considered a 
different method than the beating, but as a matter 
of fact, the two merge into each other. When beat- 
ing, the lion hunter usually rides until he actually 
reaches the lion’s cover, and if he runs on to a 
lion in the open he rides after it until the su- 
perior speed of the horse over any fair distance forces 
the lion to stop and lie down at bay. And, likewise, 
if one is riding after lions and the lion gets into cover, 
the game is up unless there are beaters to get him out. 
Paul Rainey introduced an added element to the 
horseback method of lion hunting when he imported 
