LION HUNTING ON THE KAPITI PLAINS 



81 



make them leave some particularly difficult hill or swamp 

 for lions lie close. But Sir Alfred knew just the right place 

 to go to, and was bound to get us lions and he did. 



One day we started from the ranch house in good sea- 

 son for an all-day lion hunt. Besides Kermit and myself, 

 there was a fellow-guest, Medlicott, and not only our host, 



The start for the first day's lion hunting 

 From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt 



but our hostess and her daughter; and we were joined by 

 Percival at lunch, which we took under a great fig-tree, at 

 the foot of a high, rocky hill. Percival had with him a little 

 mongrel bull-dog, and a Masai "boy," a fine, bold-looking 

 savage, with a handsome head-dress and the usual formidable 

 spear; master, man, and dog evidently all looked upon any 

 form of encounter with lions simply in the light of a spree. 

 After lunch we began to beat down a long donga, or dry 

 watercourse a creek, as we should call it in the Western 



