196 WANDERINGS AND MEMORIES 



head to our skinner, " Lord Delamere," ^ and found 

 that Pullar, who had been out with Judd, had 

 killed some Wildebeest as bait for lions, which 

 we hoped to find at the carcases next morning. 

 After an excellent dinner served by our " chef," 

 Mahomed, a real artist of the frying-pan, we smoked 

 our pipes to the pleasant rumblings ^ of three 

 different troops of lions and the weird cries of birds 

 and game, and felt we had come at last to the best 

 place in East Africa. 



In preparation for an early start next morning 

 we soon dived under the mosquito curtains and 

 went to bed. Somehow I could not sleep, and lay 

 for long listening to the continuous snarls and 

 grunts of the lions, which had evidently found 

 the dead Wildebeest near the camp. Now and 

 again the night air was rent by the agonised yells 

 of the hyaenas, who were being kept off their dinner 

 by the feeding lions, and these cries continued 

 the whole night long, till I sank into a troubled 

 sleep, shortly before the dawn. It was still 

 dark when my Uganda boy, bringing hot water, 

 gently touched me and announced the hour as a 

 quarter to five. Not a sound was to be heard 



^ I never knew what his real name was, but he always 

 called himself " Lord Delamere," and was very particular 

 about the " Lord." I fancy that at some time he had been 

 with the real owner of this name, and like many other natives 

 had adopted the title of his former master (a common occur- 

 rence amongst East African natives who wish to perpetuate 

 the nomenclature of some one they admire). 



2 Lions seldom roar well in East Africa, as I used to hear 

 them in South Africa. Only twice during this trip did I hear 

 a lion " let himself go " in that magnificent thunder which is 

 the grandest of all earthly sounds. Once I heard a lion roar 

 loudly at 10 a.m. and ran at top speed to try and cut him off ; 

 but he got into the bush and I lost him. 



