240 



HUNTING ADVENTURES. 



him, and at length reduced his pace to a stand. We then hanged 

 him by the neck to a bough of a tree, and in about fifteen minutea 

 he seemed dead, but he again became very troublesome during 

 the operation of skinning, twisting his body in all manner of ways. 

 This serpent measured fourteen feet.* 



At night no game visited the water, being scared by the strong 

 smell of the carrion. Lions, however, were so numerous that we 

 deemed it safe to shift a position we had taken down the glen, for 

 they trotted past within twenty yards of us, growling fearfully. 

 We fired ofT the big gun to scare them for the moment while we 

 shifted to our baggage at the fountain head, where we instantly 

 lighted a large fire. The lions, for a short time after this, kept 

 quiet, when they again returned, and the fire being low, they soon 

 commenced upon the buffalo the natives had left within fifty yards 

 of us, and before morning two of them came up and looked into 

 our bothy, when Boxer, giving a sharp bark, and I suddenly 

 awaking and popping up my head, they bounded off. 



This snake was probably a Python, a large snake common in Africa. 



