146 



THE HUNTER'S ARCADIA. 



a boy. Honey vley is never without lions, but as 

 long as they don't kill cattle we leave them alone, 

 for, you see, they furnish many a feed for my bush 

 people. Soon after sundown we started, but at mid- 

 night, as we were going through a very stony, rough 

 piece of kloof, where the brush comes down to the 

 track, a lion growled in front of us, answered, after a 

 minute or two, by a roar, and immediately after seven 

 or eight lions took up the signal, and made such a 

 row around us that we could scarcely hear each other 

 speak. We are accustomed to lions, so the drivers 

 cracked their whips at them, and shouted to them to 

 be off about their business, while we lighted fire- 

 brands to throw in their faces ; but before we had 

 succeeded in doing the last, the oxen wheeled round 

 sharp, nearly upset the wagons, and refused, in spite 

 of every exertion, to go on. When this occurred it is 

 a wonder that there was not a general smash-up ; and 

 there would have been, but that my drivers were 

 good men, and the cattle knew them well. Soon we 

 had fires lighted, but that didn't drive the lions off, 

 for up till morning they remained around us, roaring 

 incessantly. The oxen had now become so thoroughly 



