CHAP. V. LIONS. 243 



doubt that he was runnmg away, and as I knew him to 

 be a plucky fellow, I first glanced to see if anything was 

 after him, before shouting to him. On seeing me he 

 pulled up, and then I noticed that not only was he so 

 breathless as to be unable to speak, but that he was per- 

 fectly naked, his scanty dress having got torn off during 

 his flight. When, however, he recovered himself, he 

 accounted for his alarm in the following words : — " After 

 leaving camp this morning I went up with Mahazula 

 to the Daka bush, but we had not been many minutes 

 inside before I missed him from behind, for ever since 

 you gave that boy a gun he is always wanting to steal 

 away by himself (he had been his mat-bearer, but, having 

 learned to shoot, I had given him a gun, which was a 

 constant som-ce of jealousy and quarrel between him and 

 his master) ; however, I kept on, as there were several 

 buffalo spoors of yesterday evening, and I was momen- 

 tarily expecting to come across those of to-day, when I 

 heard something moving quietly through the bushes, and 

 from the sound, which was approaching me, I fancied it 

 was a small antelope, probably disturbed by Mahazula, 

 and as there is no meat in camp, I kept quiet, thinking 

 that I would shoot it if it came near enough. You know 

 how thick the Daka is, and I was in the very thickest of 

 it, where those tremendous cactus bushes prevent your 

 seeing a yard in any direction, and the sound kept 

 coming nearer and nearer till the animal was evidently 

 within two yards of me ; a silence of a few seconds 

 followed, then a rustle, and you may imagine my dismay 

 when, instead of a duiker, the enormous head of a lion 

 came out so close that I could have touched it with my 



