92 THE LAND OF THE LION 
they (the antelope) saw fit and then gallop away. This 
evidently hopeless performance was repeated several times, 
and the curious thing about it was, that the hungry beasts 
were so intent on their hunting, that they didn’t observe 
the men hunting them, and so came on and on until three of 
them were shot. 
Usually all attempt at hunting seems to be abandoned by 
the lions are soon as the sun is up. I have see more than 
once lions quietly trotting off like big dogs going to kennel, 
bound for their reedbed haunt; and the game herds would 
just look at them a moment, and moving a little way out of 
their path, let them pass. Indeed they scarcely stopped 
feeding. But let me get back to my own lion band. The 
spoor on the dewy grass was fresh as could be as we crept 
along. Ina few hundred yards we were off our grassy ridge, 
where the herbage had been cropped quite short, and on 
the edge of a large patch of unburned grass, grass that 
had somehow escaped the autumn fires (which sweep 
all over the country). It was the old story. When 
lions lie up for the day, they choose their retreat wisely. 
We were in a nasty bit of ground, the bushes grew 
very thick, and the tangle mounted in many places above 
our waists. Brownie to my left suddenly sank down, 
and I heard again the soft purring noise, but could not 
for my life say whether it was behind my back or in 
front. I saw that he saw them; but as I came to his 
side there was a soft swishing sound in the grass some 
fifty yards away, and for an instant the strangest con- 
glomeration imaginable of sticking up and sticking out 
tails whisked off before me, and yet one single lioness or 
lion I could not see. 
They had been sunning themselves, as had my first band, 
on the other side of an ant heap, drying the heavy dew off 
their coats, and of course one or two had lain down with 
their noses just on the edge of the ant hill looking down their 
