nn, ——— Ee 
HUNTING ELEPHANT AND RIDING LION 171 
they are not twenty yards away. I aim, well below the 
ears and straight between them. There lies the brain, and 
at this distance anyone could hit it. I fire, a deep grunt, 
more than a growl, torn, twisted grass, and big paws in the 
air. All is still. The grass does not even tremble. 
I look with all my eyes into the grass before me and 
around. Nosignofanother! And now the shouting comes 
nearer, and I see H. coming at a stretching gallop, my 
Somali close after him. ‘‘Are you right?” he cries. Very 
evidently Iam. ‘Where are the lions?’ “The grass beat 
| us. We have lost two.” ‘“‘When I heard only one shot 
I was very anxious. I feared you had ridden into them 
| and missed.” Of course we shook hands all round, and 
| vowed we'd not ‘‘take on” lions, and more especially 
lionesses in this sort of riding country again. 
It was still very early morning. One of my Wakamba, 
| my second gunbearer, stayed to skin my prize, and we rode 
| back to our temporarily deserted elephant spoor. We fol- 
| lowed it all day, losing it sometimes when the ridges were 
| bare. At other times following at a canter, the gunbearers 
| hanging to the horses’ tails. But it was all to no pur- 
| pose. The band we followed separated on some rough 
| ground to hunt for water, and though we made a long cast, 
| in order to pick up the trail again, we failed todo so. Ithad 
been a hard day. We had started very early and gone for 
at least twenty-five miles, and hard as man and beast could 
travel, and keep the spoor. It was already late in the after- 
noon, and we turned campward. Our course had been 
in a wide circle, and fortunately ““home” was not more 
than ten miles away. On the way back we rode almost 
among a large herd of giraffe. They were looking at 
something that alarmed them, directly away from us. The 
riding was good and the grass muffled the ponies’ feet, so 
we were among them before they knew it. I longed for 
a camera film, but I had used up my last, or I could, without 
