MY FIRST LION 89 



sank slowly from sight again. There was just one instant's 

 pause, and out of the grass came the big forefeet and the tip 

 of the tail. He was dead without a groan. I turned as 

 quickly as I could to see what had become of the rest. 

 I was only in time to fire at a large lioness as she made off in 

 the grass. I missed her, and I did not care, to tell the truth. 

 I had drunk deep just then, and was quite contented to let 

 the whole family of them go. Had I not seen the great paws 

 of the king himself stretched upward to the sky ! My men 

 ran to the ant hill and could count the troop as they crossed 

 the distant rise of land. I went over and stood by my first 

 lion. When they returned they told me that they had 

 counted eight lionesses and half grown or three-quarter 

 grown pups. He was a magnificent fellow indeed, very 

 large and in fine condition with a quite first-class mane. As 

 he lay dead, the tape passed from the tip of the nose to the 

 tip of the tail gave him ten feet five inches; the stretched 

 skin was twelve feet six inches. When our rejoicings were 

 abated a little, Dooda remembered his jaw, and coming up 

 to me with a rueful countenance said, " But you do kill me." 

 I told him that next time he attempted to fire my rifle while 

 he was my gunbearer I should hit him not with my elbow 

 but with the stock of my rifle, as he would endanger all 

 our lives. He never as it happened required another lesson, 

 and really was a good hunter and brave man, but like 

 most Somalis very excitable. Once afterward when he saw 

 a lion in thick scrub suddenly he gripped my arm with so 

 tense a grip that I could not use it for a moment, so later 

 I said to him, "Dooda, I will show you the way to touch 

 your man's arm when you think you see something that he 

 does not." And I gripped as fiercely as I could the inside of 

 his arm where he had held mine. He danced, of course, 

 with the pain, but admitted after that he deserved it. So the 

 lion was skinned and brought to camp, and I heard for the 

 first time that weird Somali chant which the Wakamba and 



