THE ROARING OF LIONS 



us that they were watching every move we made. My 

 companion soon grew weary of it all, rolled over and 

 went to sleep as calmly as if he were back in London, 

 but I could not follow his example. Those lions were 

 too near and too noisy to be pleasant. All the time I 

 felt I wanted to wake up Coates and make him listen 

 too. Towards dawn the lions took their departure, 

 probably feeling that they had used up quite a lot 

 of growls without any tangible or, rather, any edible 

 result ; but some hyenas took their place, cursing the 

 whole of living creation ; and then a troop of zebra 

 thundered by, uttering their peculiar shrill, barking 

 noise. Altogether it was not an enjoyable time. 



After that night, when the lions had been growling 

 round, I wrote in my diary : — 



The next morning, while having breakfast, a 

 native from a local village came in and asked if we 

 would shoot the aforementioned lions for him, as that 

 night they had killed a cow and a donkey of his. He 

 was evidently in earnest, for when he saw us hesitate 

 he offered us a bribe of two cows. 



We were very willing, but our inexperience caused 

 us to hesitate, and we decided to wait until more expert 

 help was at hand, so sent a note back to Nairobi asking 

 a friend who was an old campaigner to come to our 

 assistance. 



He came, not to shoot the lions but to warn us off 

 them, for it appeared that we had nearly committed 



6i 



