ONE AFRICAN DAY 197 



as we stood and drank our coffee in the darkness. 

 An hour passed ere it was light enough to see an 

 object at 100 yards, and then Pullar, Judd and 

 I loaded our rifles and crept silently out towards 

 the palm-trees from which we hoped to view the 

 carcases of the Wildebeest and find the lions still 

 on feed. Over the last fifty yards we crawled 

 in complete silence, and then, looking through 

 a low bastion of stunted bushes, surveyed the scene. 

 There was nothing there except a few disconsolate- 

 looking vultures and two or three Marabout Storks 

 pecking fitfully at the shank-bones of the vanished 

 Wildebeests. The lions had finished their meal 

 and gone. 



Few people know how completely nocturnal 

 lions have become in nearly all parts of Africa. 

 It is now possible to live for years in some lion- 

 haunted districts and yet never to see a single 

 one in broad daylight. Only a few years ago on the 

 Gwas N'gishu plateau or the Athi, for instance, lions 

 could be seen almost any morning, returning over 

 the open country to lie up in bush for the day. 

 Nearly all these lions were ridden down and killed, 

 and in other parts, especially in forest and bush 

 countries, it is now very rare to see one in broad 

 daylight, except in the very wildest and least- 

 frequented places. Lions soon learn it is not safe 

 to be abroad after sun up, and make for the dense 

 bush by the rivers or lie up in dongas, where they 

 are seldom surprised or seen, unless stumbled upon 

 by chance. 



Here on the Amala, certainly one of the best 

 lion places in all Africa, a lion feeding late in the 

 morning or coming home from some foray might 



