132 THE LAND OF THE LION 
cases the Massai are glad of your help, and you may reckon 
pretty safely on the lion’s return to his toothsome ‘“‘kill.” 
The difficulty is to prevent the owners taking all the meat 
the lion has left. If you can by purchase or persuasion 
prevent this, and if the moon is shining, then have a thorn 
boma, built for yourself, a few yards from the kill, and you 
have as sure a thing as there is in lion hunting, which is 
not saying much. I have never been able to induce a lion 
to come back to his game kill, if it had been disturbed, 
or if a boma was put up nearby. When there was no 
game to speak of, and a fat cow had been killed, I have had 
him come back two nights running and pull a boma, we had 
built, to pieces, to get at his meal, and, the Massai tell me, 
it is always so. 
If there are trees close by, there is a much easier and 
safer way of getting him. Have a place put up in a tree, 
close as you can get to the kill, and fix yourself so that you 
will not fall down if you should nod. ‘This can be done near 
an undisturbed gamekill. One man, I know of, killed, in this 
way, four fine lions, on one lucky night. But I should not 
advise either of these methods unless there is a moon, 
and the weather is dry. A soaking cold rain may do you 
so much harm that even a lion skin will not repay you. 
The night, too, seems very long, and it is cramping, tedious 
work. If you have crouched in the bows of your “‘birch 
bark” all through a September night, while your hunter 
has ‘“‘called”’ the harmless moose, you will remember well 
how every bone in your body ached, before the welcome 
sunbeams came slanting over the dark spruce tops, and 
the tall frost rimmed swamp grass. But you can make 
yourself far more comfortable in a canoe, than you can, 
perched on a tree limb, or crouching behind a thin 
screen of thorn bush. Still lions are worth trying for in 
every sort of way. 
The most difficult trophy to get, and I think the finest 
