A LION STORY. 175 



but the second, as may be observed by a note ap- 

 pended to it, he wrote himself at my request. 



THE MAJOR'S FIRST LION STORY. 



" "When quartered at Dessa, in Guzzerat, Major 

 (then Lieutenant) Delamaine, and Captain Har- 

 ris,* went out on one occasion near to the village 

 of Barnun-Warra, for the purpose of killing a large 

 lion that during three or four years had infested the 

 country thereabouts, and in the while had not only 

 destroyed much cattle but five of the inhabitants. 



" The gentlemen were mounted on separate ele- 

 phants, and each was provided with at least three 

 guns, or rifles, and they were attended by from 

 fifteen to twenty natives on foot. 



" The lion had been ' marked do\vn,' in the early 

 part of the morning, in the wooded banks of a tank, 

 bordering on the cultivated lands of the village, 

 which cover he had for some time haunted. The 

 country in the vicinity was flat, and in general iree 

 from jungle. 



" The beast was believed to have his lair in a patch 

 of copse-wood where, from the jungle having been 

 some years previously cut away by the natives for 

 stakes and the like, the young trees had grown up 

 again so close and tangled, as to be almost impene- 

 trable. But the ' patch ' was of no great extent, 

 its area, perhaps, not exceeding that of Grosvenor 

 Square. The other parts of the wood surround- 



* As elsewhere said, the late Sir Cormvallis Harris, one of the 

 first of Indian sportsmen, and well known for his interesting works 

 on Abyssinia, and the wild sports of Southern Africa. 



