166 THE LAND OF THE LION 
and water too abundant to permit of its remaining for much 
longer what it is to-day —a no man’s land, and only the 
favourite feeding ground for innumerable game herds. 
The sefari had made camp before we rode in. The 
men came running upto say that J. J. W. and his hunter 
had shot a great lion (simba koubwa). Another waved 
a zebra tail that he carried for the flies. ‘“‘ Mane long and 
black like this!”? he cried. Here was news indeed. Ele- 
phant seen in the open, and a black maned lion bagged 
on the very first morning’s ride into our old game country. 
Presently the hunters came in. It seemed that almost as 
soon as we had ridden away from the sefari, my syce, who 
was leading my mule, saw a fine lion going quietly along, 
on the opposite side of the sloping ridge they were marching 
on. He was about a hundred and fifty or two hundred 
yards away, and in full view. Both J. J. W and his 
hunter shot at him twice without hitting him; a moving lion 
at two hundred yards, is not an easy shot. He broke into a 
gallop, and dashed over the crest on to the level veldt 
beyond. There they had him, for J. J. W.’s syce, a 
Somali, accustomed to lion riding and very well mounted, 
rounded him up, in five or six hundred yards. ‘The great 
fellow must have fed too well that morning, and was not 
able, or did not care, to run fast or far. Anyway, he came 
to a stand in short grass. ‘This part of the plateau is ideal 
country for “‘riding’?—the game having kept the rich 
sod well cropped, there are few holes and no bushes. ‘The 
lion stood grandly to bay. J. J. W.’s hunter rode a mule 
that was faster than his, and in his excitement, did what 
no professional hunter should under any circumstances 
be allowed to do, unless you want him to shoot the lion 
instead of yourself. He galloped ahead of his man, and 
got up within shooting distance some time before J. J. W. 
did. The latter who got up on his mule, soon as he could, 
had forgotten to take his rifle from his gunbearer. So here 
i a a ees Se 
