150 MY SOMALI BOOK 



snatches at tlie body, after each bite lookmg all 

 around him with a furtive uneasy air. It was too 

 obvious that there were no lions anywhere near, so I 

 went back to bed disgusted, reflecting that the lions 

 of Aror at any rate did object to their kills being 

 moved. However, the morning furnished another 

 explanation, when we learned that two sheep had 

 been taken from two adjacent Jcarias by the same pair 

 of lions, so that mj^ donkey was their third meal m 

 the course of two or three hours. With waistbelts 

 tight as theirs must have been, why indeed should they 

 return ? 



At about 7 a.m. we started on their tracks, from 

 which we found to my disappointment that the male 

 was a youngster, probably, if anything, a trifle smaller 

 than the lioness. After a time we got into country 

 consisting entirely of durr grass in more or less con- 

 tinuous patches ; unfortunately we had to travel with 

 the wind, which was blowing steadily, with the result 

 that we put them up eighty yards away. Once they 

 were on the alert it was hard work to come up with 

 them, and we should never have done so had they not 

 been full-fed. But at length about middaj^ we 

 surrounded a patch of grass and thorn scrub that they 

 had entered and not left. We fired the grass and the 

 lioness came out just in front of me, and immediately 

 put on the pace, going past me at about twenty-five 

 yards distance in great bounds. At my shot, heels over 

 head she went like a rabbit ! It was the prettiest shot 

 possible. I had held a trifle too far forward, but the 

 heavy bullet had smashed both shoulders. She picked 

 herself up and struggled gamely on, taking a raking 



