126 SPORT IN THE EASTERN SUDAN 



was visible, and coming up to the spot it was clear 

 that the lion had gone off at full gallop, bounding 

 over bushes in his path. His trail now led right across 

 open country, and then into low thorn-bushes. It 

 was 11 a.m., and the shikaris were obviously giving 

 it up as a bad job, so very reluctantly I returned to 

 camp, calling to mind Baker's dictum that ordinarily 

 the Sudanese lion is not a fighting animal. Sat over 

 goat in evening without success. 



January $ih. Spent a fruitless night in machan, 

 and in the morning marched about 3 miles to Gira. 

 On the road I saw hartebeest, wart-hog, and gazelle, 

 but would not shoot owing to the absence of trans- 

 port, as A. alone was accompanying me along the 

 river-bank. There was fresh sign of elephants all over 

 the Gira meshra, but I found no traces of lions until 

 the afternoon, when I went out alone, and saw the 

 tracks of a large lion across the river, a quarter of 

 a mile above the camp, and spent the rest of the 

 day making a machan, the shikaris warning me that 

 I was certain to be visited by elephants, their fresh 

 tracks being everywhere. I spent the evening in the 

 new machan, being relieved at 6 o'clock so as not 

 to be cut off by the elephants before dinner, 

 the shikaris having warned me of the impossi- 

 bility of moving about if the herd occupied the 

 ground. Nothing, however, showed up to dinner- 

 time. 



