THE STORY OF AN OUTING 



direction of the zebra," because it is often so dark that you 

 cannot see the lion, but have to take a chance at hitting him 

 by firing where you think he is. If you only wound him you 

 have next morning the ticklish proposition of following a 

 wounded lion. The inmate of the boma has a chance to see 

 the lion feeding at, you might" say, a disagreeably close range. 

 Boma-shooting is, of course, an all-night job, the hunter going 

 in before sunset and staying there until dawn. As an illustra- 

 tion of a night in a boma, it may interest you to hear of a night 

 that Jack and I spent in one. 



Immediately after we entered our thorny "couch" things 

 became disagreeable. The rain came down in torrents, com- 

 pletely drenching us and lasting the whole night. It was so 

 dark we could neither see the bait nor the sights of our rifles, 

 so we decided if a lion came we would take a chance and fire 

 in its general direction. We could hear lions grunting as soon 

 as it became dark, and we waited, expecting to hear their 

 grunts sound nearer and nearer. We were disappointed in 

 this, and had almost given up hope of their coming when 

 about ten o'clock, when everything was still, we suddenly 

 heard a roar and snarl, and a lioness jumped on the zebra, 

 clawing and crunching the body and making such a racket 

 that we both pretty nearly had nervous prostration. You 

 have no idea what a fiendish noise they make, feeding. In- 

 tensify a billion times the gurglish demonstrations of a billion 

 newly rich people eating soup, and you will have a small idea 

 of some of the sounds. The crunching noise defies an attempt 

 at description. Presently the lioness left the bait, came for 

 the boma, and started clawing at it within two feet of us. We 

 both crouched, with our rifles ready for action, should she try 

 to get in. We couldn't shoot, because we couldn't see any- 

 thing to shoot at, and at that close range a random shot 

 would only have made matters worse. 



We had to stick in this position for two hours. The lioness 

 occasionally came out to crunch at the body, and then would 

 come back and turn her attention to us. Finally we thought 

 the lioness had gone away, as for a long time we heard no sound 

 from her. So Jack and I decided to lie down and rest. We 



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