THE LIONS OF TANGANYIKA 105 



they stood up and then saw right under their noses, 

 not more than thirty feet from them, five lions! They 

 all dropped as if they had been shot, flat on their 

 stomachs, and in that position they wiggled like a 

 school of fishes into the boma, where we had told them 

 to go in the first place, and where they will never fail 

 to go when told again. 



Now came the job of getting the hons away until 

 we could finish the boma. By much jumping and 

 shouting the boys managed to get them at about a 

 hundred yards distance, then started operations. We 

 had to cut down a lot of brush and grass so that when 

 the pictures were made the lions would not be hidden. 

 While this was going on, it began to grow dark and in 

 our haste to finish the job we almost forgot the yellow 

 cats, until one of the boys went over to cut down a 

 bush and was met by a mighty roar. The big male 

 had crept back and was within twenty feet of us and 

 probably had been there for quite a while. It was 

 time to quit, for darkness was coming swiftly on, and 

 lions grow bolder as the shadows deepen. 



Mounting the truck, which was standing alongside 

 the dead zebra, we drove away about thirty feet and 

 then stopped to see what would happen. What did 

 happen was a most impressive thing, and we that 

 beheld it will never forget the scene. Here was the 

 old abandoned Masai manyatta with the grass huts 

 outlined in the half Hght, as the sun sank blood red 

 over the rolHng veldt. Now with his fine head erect 

 and the mane showing black, the big male hon strode 

 slowly between two of the deserted huts and then con- 

 tinued his stride to the kill, where he stood over the 

 zebra carcass in beautiful silhouette against the 



