chap. vii. HUNTING WITH DOGS. 349 



so bright that you can see to read, and it only differs from 

 the day in that the light is softer, more subdued, and 

 more beautiful ; but when it is dark it is a darkness that 

 can be felt. On one occasion Andersson, speaking of his 

 experience of night-shooting says, "So black was the 

 night that I could not discern even the muzzle of my gun ;" 

 and in another place, "though the impenetrable darkness 

 prevented me from seeing anything, I could no longer 

 doubt that I was in the immediate vicinity of a lion," and 

 on this night my position was, as regards a total want of 

 light, much the same. 



The dog, which had been lying close to me but on the 

 side opposite the fence which protected the village, now 

 rose, and standing over me, growled louder and more 

 fiercely than ever, while I fancied I could distinguish 

 some faint sound in the direction in which his head was 

 turned. On passing my hand up on to his neck and 

 mane I found his hair all bristling up, and for several 

 reasons the idea of its being a lion at once took possession 

 of me. I argued that if it had been a hyena the dog 

 would long ago have rushed out after it, and that even if 

 it had been a leopard he would have warned me by bark- 

 ing, while I remembered that on the occasions, neither 

 few nor far between in that country, on which he had 

 seen lions or got their wind when with me, he had growled 

 in a similar manner. It was not an altogether pleasant 

 idea that close by, perhaps within a few yards which it 

 could clear at a single spring, a Hon was prowling about 

 on the search for food, for with no other purpose could 

 it have come here. However, I could not help myself, 

 except by sitting up and noiselessly cocking my gun, 



