An Alarm 269 



and I am able to admire to my great joy as fine and 

 almost as large a lion as the one which the vultures 



o 



helped me to find the year before, but this time a 

 lion with a magnificent mane. In the neck is a 

 minute hole made by the small 303 bullet. 



My men run to fetch the photographic camera, 

 and when everything is ready I take a photograph 

 of this magnificent animal. The men from the camp 

 then assist Tchigallo, Tambarika, and Rodzani, in 

 skinning it. 



This work is only half finished, and I am sitting 

 down looking on, when a noise, at first indefinite and 

 then very recognisable, comes from the direction of 

 the river-bed, the low roars which lions make when 

 they communicate with one another. There is a 

 general panic on the part of the men from the camp. 

 " The wounded one is returning ! " they cry, and all 

 swarm, one after the other, into a tree which bends 

 beneath their united weight. My hunters seize their 



o / 



rifles. I run to the eminence of which I have spoken, 

 and upon noiselessly arriving, see two tawny backs 

 pass a few yards away on a level with the grass. . . . 

 There is only just time to aim at the neck of one of 

 the animals before they disappear in higher vegeta- 

 tion. A dull sound responds to the report of my 

 rifle, while the grass, violently parted, reveals the 

 other animal in flight. 



They are lionesses seeking for their lord and 

 master, almost on the same track ; and if we had not 

 heard the noise they would have passed unobserved, a 

 few yards from the group busy skinning the dead lion. 



