MY SOMALI BOOK 103 



(without hurting her) a woman milking a goat who 

 was in his way, and jumped the zariba fence taking a 

 sheep with him. This promised to be more interesting 

 than that unsatisfactory night-watching game. A 

 hasty snack and a cup of cocoa and I was away with 

 Ebni and our guide, Abdilleh and Henduleh having 

 already gone ahead. 



The karia was little more than a mile away, and by 

 the time we had reached it and taken up the tracks, 

 those of a single big lion, it was only 7 o'clock. It 

 w^as plain sailing following the " drag " of the sheep's 

 body to the spot, about a thousand yards away, where 

 he had finished off his mutton ; then the real w^ork 

 began. We knew that our quarry had dined well : 

 he had demolished the whole sheep, and we hoped in 

 consequence that he had not gone far. Great as is 

 the weight of a big lion, he remains a cat, and his 

 walking tread is marvellously light ; this time, more- 

 over, there was but a single animal, and the tracking 

 was correspondingly difficult ; a great deal of the 

 ground, too, which we traversed was a clay soil with 

 a sun-baked, wind-swept surface which rarely retained 

 any impression at all. And the tracks went on as 

 though our lion had eaten nothing for a week. So on 

 we had to go too, with frequent checks when the spoor 

 was temporarily lost, or to examine likely bits of cover. 

 At length we came to more and more open country ; 

 trees but hardly any grass or bush at all. We began 

 to be afraid that he was lying under a single tree and 

 would detect us in the distance and be off, so I put 

 Elmi up on the pony to ride and try to round him 

 up if necessar}^ However, he was not required : 



