90 IN AFRICA 



noticed a rhino standing under the trees, but he was 

 not the wounded one. I decided that the shade was 

 insufficient for both of us and moved swiftly on. 

 Across the valley on the slope of another blistered 

 hill stood the one I was looking for. He didn't 

 seem to be in the chastened mood of one who is 

 about to die. He seemed vexed about something, 

 probably the two cordite shells he was carrying. I 

 at last came up within a hundred yards of him. He 

 had got my wind and was facing me with tail nerv- 

 ously erect. The tail of a rhino is an infallible bar- 

 ometer of his state of mind. With his short sight, I 

 knew that he could not see me at that distance, but I 

 knew that he had detected the direction in which the 

 danger lay. By slowly moving ahead, the distance 

 was cut to about seventy yards, which was not too 

 far away in an open country with a wounded rhino 

 in the foreground. I resolved to shoot before he 

 charged or before he ran away, and so I prepared to 

 end the long chase with an unerring shot. 



Suddenly a sound struck my ear that acted upon 

 me like an electric shock : 



"Simbaf 



It was the one word that I had been hoping to 

 hear ever since leaving Nairobi, for the word 

 means "lion." My Somali gunbearer was eagerly 

 pointing toward a lone tree that stood a hun- 

 dred yards off to the left. A huge, hulking 

 animal was slowly moving away from it. It was 

 my first glimpse of a wild lion. He was half con- 

 cealed in the tall, dry grass and in a few seconds 



