CHAP. V. LIONS. 261 



ing a hunting-song so loudly that it could have been 

 heard niiles off, and must undoubtedly have broken the 

 slumbers of the lion, marched up to the top, and spread- 

 mg out, so as to take in all but the outskirts, where it 

 was improbable that it would be, they entered the jungle, 

 shouting at top of their voices, partly, no doubt, in obedi- 

 ence to my wishes, but quite as much to keep their own 

 courage up. In this fashion, and amid cries of " Get up ! " 

 " Get out, you dog ! " " Where 's the dog?" to which they 

 trusted a good deal as likely to intimidate the lion, we 

 passed right through to the other side, and though the 

 ground had been beaten quite as well as it was possible 

 for anything smaller than elephants to do, no vestige of 

 the animal had been seen. 



Hardly, however, had the men begim to cluster out upon 

 the open, before there was a shouting from the extreme 

 left, which, when passed on by the innumerable strag- 

 glers, soon resolved itself into the lion having been seen 

 there. Of course there was a general rush in the direc- 

 tion, which I accompanied until I met a man who had 

 come from the spot, and who said the brute had just 

 showed itself, and turned back. On hearing this, I stopped 

 those nearest to me and sent them to collect every one 

 they could find, and in a few minutes two-thirds of the 

 people had come round me. I then divided them into 

 two bodies ; the larger, led by all my hunters, except 

 one, who remained with me, I sent back to enter the 

 jungle on the other side and to beat through it, shouting 

 and firing their guns, the other I took myself down to a 

 stream which, at four or five hundred yards distance, 

 faced the spot where the lion had shown himself, and 



