CHAPTER XV 



September 15. — ^Last evening the lions began roar- 

 ing very soon after dark. They were somewhere to 

 the westward and a considerable distance away; but 

 their reverberating calls carried distinctly to us. There 

 were a number of them, and they were doing what I 

 used to call "curate-response'' roaring. That is to 

 say, one would begin just before his predecessor left 

 off; so that a continuous pulsating volume of sound 

 rolled across the night. It was a good deal like a long 

 freight train crossing a peculiarly resonant bridge; or 

 the droning of a distant twelve-inch shell. 



From the first heavy sleep that falls on the tired 

 tropical voyageur — ^when sleep visits him at all — I 

 was aroused by a burst of noise. Raising myself on my 

 elbow, I found that the beasts were much nearer — say 

 at the top of the low ridge a mile away. They were 

 monopolizing the whole world of sound. Even the in- 

 sects seemed to have fallen into the dead silence that 

 prudence or terror had imposed on the rest of the 

 veldt. I tried to make out how many of the lions 

 there were, but was imable to distinguish clearly; I 

 thought there were three. Then, in spite of myself, I 

 fell into a doze. The magnificent organ tones per- 



179 



