THE LION 221 



"An instance of the caution and intelligence of lions 

 was observed in the circumstances surrounding the trap- 

 ping of the fourth and last lion secured in such an un- 

 sportsmanlike manner. The battle-ground of this last 

 episode was on the broad summit of Mount Lololokui. 

 The mountain is a great table-topped mass standing isolated 

 out in the Marsabit desert, above which it looms with quite 

 perpendicular slopes to a height of six thousand feet. The 

 summit is several square miles in extent and as level as the 

 floor of the plain at its base. Two springs occur on the 

 summit, which are the only waters known for a radius of 

 some fifteen miles. While camped at the larger of the 

 springs my guide told me of the existence of the other which 

 he offered to show me. I readily accepted, and next morn- 

 ing we set out with the guide for the spring. It was situ- 

 ated in a bushy ravine, along the floor of which we ap- 

 proached the spot. When within a few yards of the spring 

 we were startled by several short, growling * whuffs.' Peer- 

 ing down the few open avenues in the bushes we beheld 

 three lions scattered out in a semicircle some twenty yards 

 away. We had awakened them from their noonday nap 

 and they were greatly startled at our presence. The moun- 

 tain being without a single human inhabitant, it was the 

 custom of these lions to come to the spring at dawn for 

 water and lie there most of the day and then go down to 

 the plain below at night for their prey. After glaring at 

 us for a few seconds, the lions retreated through the brush 

 and were not again seen that day. Great confusion reigned 

 among my followers; the guide nimbly mounted to the top 

 of a large rock, my gun-bearers peered about under the 

 bushes to locate the lions, and I brandished a shotgun. At 

 the spring we found the footprints of the lions and also 



