chap. vi. LEOPARDS. """' 303 



While returning, I naturally asked many questions of 

 the natives about this animal, which I had sometimes 

 heard of, but had never before seen or formed any par- 

 ticular idea of. They told me that it was very rare ; 

 that in this part of the country it was principally found 

 in the rocky gorges in the Bombo Mountains, among the 

 dense jungle of which it lay concealed, though it was 

 occasionally, as in the present instance, seen hunting in 

 pairs through the plains ; that it lived chiefly on the 

 smaller antelopes, and was harmless and cowardly to a 

 degree. As an instance of its great resemblance to a 

 lioness, one of them related a story of a hunter who met 

 his death by chasing one of the latter animals, under the 

 impression that it was an ngulule. 



On the other occasion on which I came across them I 

 found the fresh spoor of a pair soon after starting out 

 hunting early one morning, and, as the rain had been 

 heavy on the previous night, and the tracks would there- 

 fore be distinct, I determined to follow them, despite the 

 entreaties of my gun-bearer, the same man who had been 

 with me on the former occasion, and who stoutly main- 

 tained, though of course he knew better, that it was the 

 spoor of two young lions. 



I tracked them for some hours without intermission, 

 and had an interesting study of their mode of stalking 

 and their movements Avhile hunting before I reached the 

 greater part of the carcase of an impalla which they had 

 killed, upon seeing which I hesitated as to whether I 

 should go on, or wait by it for their return ; but as I 

 hoped to find them fast asleep in some thicket close by, 

 gorged with meat, and overcome with the heat of an 



