FIRST GLIMPSE OF A WILD LION 



83 



mauled by a lion was a person of much distinction, 

 even more so than the ivory hunter who had killed 

 three hundred elephants. 



On the railway to Nairobi every eye was on the 

 lookout for lions and every one gazed with intense 

 interest at the station of Tsavo and remembered 

 the famous pair of man-eaters that had terrorized 

 that place some years before. 



In Nairobi the men who had killed lions, and 

 those who had been mauled by them (and there are 



The Jolly Little Cemetery 



many of the latter), were objects of vast concern, 

 and the little cemetery with its many headstones 

 marked "Killed by lion" added still greater fire to 

 my interest. 



Consequently, when we marched out of Nairobi 

 on the evening of September twenty-third, with 

 tents and guns and a hundred and twenty men, the 

 dominating thought was of lions. If ever any one 

 had greater hope and less expectation of killing a 

 lion I was the one. 



We had planned a short trip of from three to five 



