82 THE LAND OF THE LION 
throw to the winds his feigned indifference, and “clear” 
like a frightened cat. 
Surely like all wild animals, the lion is learning and learn- 
ing quickly the lesson the modern rifle so effectually teaches. 
Tigers, Indian Shekaris tell us, do not charge as they did. 
Our own grizzly bear, of whose fierce savagery, we feel 
ourselves (in honour to the country of bzg things) bound to 
make the most — may have in Lewis and Clark’s days 
charged in quite orthodox fashion. I have proved, to my 
own satisfaction at any rate, that he is not half as likely 
to charge as a wounded water buck to-day. 
Anyway lions won’t stand. If they do stand for you, 
count yourself lucky. If you come on one at a few yards off, 
his surprise will chain him to where he is, for — well-long 
enough for a ready man to shoot him. ‘Then under these 
circumstances the surprise sometimes is mutual. A friend 
of mine was hunting with another man on the Athi three 
years ago. They divided, each walking on the edge of a 
narrow water course — an excellent place to chance on a 
lion. My friend’s companion had come all the way to the 
Protectorate to get a lion, so he kept saying. He cared to 
shoot nothing else. Presently out of the yellow nulla grass 
a fine male lion stepped right in front of him, and, not seeing 
him stood at thirty yards distance stock still. “The would- 
be lion slayer stood stock still too, and the lion walked back 
into the cover, and he back to camp, a disconcerted 
man. Of course he never had another chance like that and 
went home wiser if lion-less. 
My own chance seemed as though it would never come. 
J. J. W. saw ten or eleven different lions. He longed to 
give me his luck but could not. Morning after morning I 
left camp at dawn and carefully searched the country 
where I had marked their nightly roaring. I could only 
comfort myself by repeating my own old fisherman’s motto, 
“If you want salmon keep your fly in the water.”’ Some- 
