With Flashlight and Rifle * 



feelings, compounded of curiosity, suspense, and a thousand 

 confused fancies. 



So minute after minute goes by. At last the moon 

 comes out again ; and now, since I can make no more 

 new observations, I seize the opportunity of firing on one 

 of the lions. But I have no luck to-day. With the report 

 both lions vanish in the darkness, and I, much depressed, 

 remain in my ambush. 



The next hours of waiting are in vain ; nothing more 

 happens. Even the usually ubiquitous hyaenas seem to 

 be absent to-night, and when the morning breaks I return 

 to the camp, feeling as if broken to pieces, stung all 

 over by mosquitoes, and with that peculiar sensation which 

 unmistakably heralds an attack of fever. 



I was not deceived, and for two clays I am confined 

 to camp by a bad attack of malaria. On the third day 

 is found the skeleton of a lioness which I had hit a 

 long way from the camp. Everything but the bones had 

 already been consumed by the vultures and hyaenas. . . . 



Many and many a night-ambush in the tropics will be 

 just like this one ; and attractive as they may appear to 

 the sportsman at home, he will find he cannot go in for 

 them much in the African wilderness. Certainly I have 

 obtained in this way many an interesting and important 

 glimpse of the nocturnal habits of wild creatures ; but 

 shooting at a few paces, from the safe shelter of an 

 ambush, is not a thing which appeals to me much. 



634 



