XVII LIONS: ON THE ATHI PLAINS 203 
moved after this; but for safety’s sake, I made no 
attempt to go up to him for a few minutes, and then 
only after Mahina had planted a few stones on his 
body just to make sure that he was really dead. 
We both felt very pleased with ourselves as we 
stood over him and looked at his fine head, great 
paws, and long, clean, sharp tusks. He was a 
young, but full-grown lion in fine condition, and 
measured nine feet eight and a half inches from 
tip of nose to tip of tail. My last shot had entered 
the spine close to the shoulder, and had lodged 
in the body; the first shot was a miss, as I have 
already said; but the second had caught him on 
the forehead, right between the eyes. The bullet, 
however, instead of traversing the brain, had been 
turned downwards by the frontal bone, through 
which it crashed, finally lodging in the root of the 
tongue, the lead showing on both sides. I cut 
out the tongue and hung it up to dry, intending 
to keep it as a trophy; but unfortunately a vulture 
swooped down when my back was turned, and 
carried it off. 
From the time I knocked the lion over until he 
first staggered and fell not more than a minute 
could have elapsed—quite long enough, however, 
to have enabled him to cover the distance and to 
have seized one or other of us. Unquestionably we 
owed our lives to the fact that we both remained 
