With Flashlight and Rifle * 



Now we: realise, for the first time:, that ejur pursuit 

 has taken us nearly six hcjurs, and that our throats are: 

 parched ; but we bear up cheerfully. The thought of 

 the: royal booty we have captured against our expectations 

 gives us new stores of strength, and enables us to forget 

 our thirst and the scars and scratches we have got em 

 face and hands from the thorns. Once again I had 

 killed a big lion, and under exceptional conditions. 



It has happened to me only too often, unfcjrtunately- 

 to have merely come in sight of lions, whether single 

 specimens or several of them together. Either I have 

 seen them for a second only, and they have been out 

 of range, or in high grass at close quarters when I have: 

 not been ready to fire, or just at the mome:nt of their 

 disappearing into a thicket. Thus it was once I came 

 upon a lioness standing near a zebra she hael been tearing 

 to pieces. Numbers of vultures, elrawn by the lioness's 

 prey and settling upon the acacia-bushes all round, 

 attracteel my steps to the place, where the lioness had 

 taken up her position in the early morning under the 

 shade of a bush. But by the time I hael got within 

 two hundred paces she hael taken cover and hael made 

 off over the side of the hill. 



In very similar circumstances I happened once upon 

 a lion anel two lionesses in high grass, also without being 

 able to fire a shot. 



On another occasion I followed a lion-trail. The: lion 

 had killeel a young ze:bra eluring the night, and had dragged 

 it a long way e>ve:r the velt to one of those: rivulet-beds 

 that dry up after the rainy sease^n, the:re to elevcuir it at 



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