62 AFRICAN NATURE NOTES CHAP. 



and I ran to help it. The blazing grass scared 

 the lions off, and they left the ox before the light 

 of the torches reached them. The wounded animal 

 immediately got up and rushed off again into the 

 darkness, but had not gone far before its loud 

 bellowing told us the lions had got hold of it once 

 more. They took some time to kill it, but its 

 agonised bellowings gradually died away in low 

 moans, until at length all was again quiet. During 

 the approach of these five lions to my camp, and 

 the subsequent chase and long-drawn-out killing 

 of the ox, not one of them made the slightest sound ; 

 and as far as my own personal experience goes, 

 with one exception, whenever lions have reconnoitred 

 or attacked my camp at night, and bitten or killed 

 any of my native followers or cattle or horses, they 

 have done all their stalking and killing without 

 making a sound. If disturbed, however, they 

 always growl loudly. On the occasion I have 

 referred to as an exception to this rule, three lions 

 as we learnt the next morning by the spoor 

 came quite close up to my bivouac one night in 

 Northern Mashunaland, and one of them gave a 

 very loud roar which woke us all up. I was 

 travelling at the time with a small cart and eight 

 oxen, which were tied to the yokes, and were right 

 in the open, unprotected either by fires or any kind 

 of kraal or fence. My two horses were tied to one 

 of the wheels, and my few native servants and 

 myself were lying close to them, with a small fence 

 of soft bush behind us. The three lions that came 

 so near us in the night could not have been very 

 hungry, or they would assuredly have seized one 

 of my oxen. Perhaps the one that so suddenly 

 roared only did so with the idea of frightening the 

 oxen, and if one of them had broken the raw hide 

 thong with which it was fastened to the yoke, and 

 run off away from our camp, all three of them 



