48 After Big Game in Central Africa 



man, we should have run the greatest dangers ; we 

 heard ten of them around the camp each evening, 

 and nothino- would have been easier for them than 



o 



to await us in open daylight when without suspicion 

 we were looking for elephant tracks in the high grass. 

 Our bearers, also, would have been much exposed 

 when they went out armed with nothing more than 

 a matchet or an axe, to gather wood or to draw 

 water, or even simply to walk about outside. On 

 the other hand, I am persuaded that our passing to 

 and fro in their locality has often disturbed our 

 dangerous neighbours, and that they have withdrawn 

 in another direction without our having seen them. 

 Only nightfall, darkness, hunger, and the smell of 

 meat attracted them around the camp, and I do not 

 know to what extent a man would have been safe 

 in leaving it at that time. Inside, provided the fires 

 were kept up, we were very safe behind our thick 

 wall of branches, outside which were piled two yards 

 of thorns of all sizes, and heaven alone knows what 

 a choice and profusion of thorns the African bush 

 offers. Lions instinctively fear thorns, which, once 

 they have penetrated their soft paws, cause inflamma- 

 tion and gatherings, preventing them from attending 

 to their business. 



It will seem strange that, with so many lions 

 around me, I have not tried to kill any of them ; but 

 during the rainy season that is a very difficult thing. 

 During the day you never see them, or perhaps only 

 once a year, and at night it is almost always raining. 

 Getting wet is nothing, but the pattering of the rain 



