52 DAYS AND NIGHTS BY THE DESERT. 



answered, "If one or two lions about, dogs bark; but 

 I think that there are seven or eight, and that they 

 are scattered round about us, so that the dogs are 

 afraid to go into the bush." Scarcely had my boy 

 done speaking when I thought that the waggon must 

 really go over, for the horses that were secured to 

 the sheltered side of it, commenced to pull and jerk 

 their halters with such violence as several times to 

 raise the leeward wheels an inch or two off the 

 ground. As nothing so reassures these animals, 

 when alarmed, as the human voice, I got out of my 

 conveyance and stood at their heads and talked to 

 them in such kindly language as they were con- 

 versant with ; in the mean time summoning all my 

 attendants from under the waggon, and ordering 

 them to pile on more fuel so as to make as much 

 blaze as possible. 



Dark as the night was, all were busy around the 

 little encampment, if I except the dogs, who seemed 

 to be possessed of such unaccountable timidity that 

 neither words nor blows could drive them out from 

 the shelter they had taken between the wheels. 

 For some minutes all had become quiet, and I began 

 to hope that it had been a false alarm, when a roar 

 so loud and close as to awake the echoes of 

 the surrounding koppies, and startle us, broke the 

 monotonous stillness of the night. Such a roar I 

 have never heard previously or since ; let he that 

 likes say what he may, it made the earth tremble. 



