SOUTH AFRICA FIFTY YEARS AGO 69 



made them fast in pairs I slipped on my clothes and, jumping 

 on the back of one of them, galloped towards the spring, 

 followed by John, half a dozen Kafirs, and the dogs, hoping 

 to cut off mother and child from the thick bush behind them. 

 But they beat me ; and the dogs, taking the scent, followed 

 them. The Kafirs had come with me, partly to see the fun 

 and partly, in case of my shooting the lioness, to catch the 

 cub, which, when it is quite young, they manage to do by 

 chasing and dodging it, and throwing their short skin caresses 

 over it. They then roll it up like a baby in swaddling clothes, 

 with only its head oift at one end and its tail at the other ; 

 round the bundle they wind a leathern riem or strap, and pass 

 the snarling though now harmless little beast from one to 

 another, saying pretty things of its father and mother, aunts 

 and uncles, &c. 



The dogs very soon brought the lioness to bay, and I 

 got within thirty yards, but from the thickness of the bush 

 could neither see them nor her. I shifted my position once 

 or twice in the hope of making out what was going on, stand- 

 ing up in my stirrups looking for an opening, that I might 

 dismount and get a shot. Suddenly the barking of the dogs 

 and snapping snarl of the lioness ceased, and I thought she 

 had broken bay and gone on, but in a second I heard a roar 

 on the horse's right quarter, in a different direction from that 

 into which I had been peering, and, looking round, saw 

 her with her mouth open, clearing a rather high patch of bush 

 twenty yards from me. There was no time to get off the 

 horse, and no possibility of a shot from his back, for the 

 charge was on his right flank, and you cannot shoot to 

 the right. I did the only thing that I could jammed the 

 spurs in and tried to make a gallop of it ; but my follower 

 was too close, and before I could get up full speed I 

 heard her strike the ground heavily twice in her bound, 

 and with the third she sat up behind me. She jumped 

 short, however, and failed to get hold with her mouth, but 

 drove her front claws well into the horse's quarters, and a 



