MY FIRST LION 85 



base just showed movement to the naked eye, and through 

 the glass I saw legs, tails, yellow flanks, and heads all pressed 

 together, as that great cat family the lord, his harem and 

 their offspring took their pleasure in the sun. The bushy 

 screen that hid them from me was far too dense to permit of 

 my shooting through it, even if the light were sufficient to 

 enable me to draw a sight on any one lion in that huddled 

 mass, which it was not, so my position was a tantalizing, and 

 an also uncertain one. I was fully 200 yards from my 

 game. The wind was very light, and, as it is apt to be in 

 the early morning, very treacherous. The little silvery 

 spiral wreaths of dew smoke rose gently twisting in the air 

 as the sun searched out the shaded grass under an over- 

 hanging bough, and as they rose they drifted every way. 

 I noticed them anxiously as I sat there, my heart I admit, 

 beating fast. My gunbearers Dooda and Brownie, were 

 greatly excited, and I at once made up my mind to pay no 

 attention to their tugs and beseeching whisperings to right and 

 left of me tugs I say, for they were pulling me first one 

 way then the other but to do as I thought best myself. A 

 choice had to be made and that right quickly. Here was the 

 situation: the patch of thorn that shielded the lions from 

 me, and through the thinning lower stems of which I could 

 just make out their colour, but not their form, was about twenty 

 yards across, and, as I said, two hundred yards away. From 

 where we crouched, two narrow green aisles of open grass, 

 only a few yards wide, passed on either side of it. As I sat 

 I could command the one to my right, but not possibly the 

 one to my left. I could from no point command both at the 

 same time. Beyond these little bush lined avenues of grass 

 there was more cover; and though it was quite open enough 

 in many places to shoot through or shoot over, there would be 

 little chance of a steady sitting shot, and that above every- 

 thing was what I wanted to get at my first lion. Which way 

 would the pack take ? I thought hard and concluded to 



