92 MY SOMALI BOOK 



chance of a standing shot was gone, as the third lion, 

 like No. 2, made past me on the leftj going at a trot 

 only, disdaining any show of haste. He fell to my 

 shot at only five or six paces distant, but was up 

 again at once and turned to charge ; however, the 

 heavy bullet in his lungs had taken all the fight out of 

 him and he swung round again so unexpectedly that 

 my second barrel missed him clean and he, too, dis- 

 appeared behind the grass in rear. Just at this 

 moment a big lioness broke on the right and dashed 

 away across the open ; before I could change rifles 

 and get in a shot she was behind some bushes sixty 

 yards away and gone. 



All this had occupied a very short space of time, 

 and the grass patch was only burnt half way through. 

 The first thing was to drag the body of the first lion 

 out of danger of being singed. Then behind us, where 

 we found No. 2 tying dead forty yards away. No. 3 

 we found lying in the open, 100 yards distant, alive but 

 unable to move. He was quickly finished by a Sher- 

 wood bullet in the brain and dragged with some 

 difficulty up to the others. A group of three lions for 

 the kodak this time. True, two of them were j^oung 

 males, not fully grown and with manes as yet un- 

 developed, but they measured well over seven feet and 

 were imposing enough. But for Abdilleh's mistake 

 over the safety bolt, the remaining lioness would 

 probably not have escaped either. 



Five lions in two days to a single gun, all fairly 

 tracked and shot on foot at close quarters ! Of course 

 it was extraordinary luck, especially in the favourable 

 ground I found them in and the easy shots I had. But 



