92 THE LAND OF THE LION 



they (the antelope) saw fit and then gallop away. This 

 evidently hopeless performance was repeated several times, 

 and the curious thing about it was, that the hungry beasts 

 were so intent on their hunting, that they didn't observe 

 the men hunting them, and so came on and on until three of 

 them were shot. 



Usually all attempt at hunting seems to be abandoned by 

 the lions are soon as the sun is up. I have see more than 

 once lions quietly trotting off like big dogs going to kennel, 

 bound for their reedbed haunt; and the game herds would 

 just look at them a moment, and moving a little way out of 

 their path, let them pass. Indeed they scarcely stopped 

 feeding. But let me get back to my own lion band. The 

 spoor on the dewy grass was fresh as could be as we crept 

 along. In a few hundred yards we were off our grassy ridge, 

 where the herbage had been cropped quite short, and on 

 the edge of a large patch of unburned grass, grass that 

 had somehow escaped the autumn fires (which sweep 

 all over the country). It was the old story. When 

 lions lie up for the day, they choose their retreat wisely. 

 We were in a nasty bit of ground, the bushes grew 

 very thick, and the tangle mounted in many places above 

 our waists. Brownie to my left suddenly sank down, 

 and I heard again the soft purring noise, but could not 

 for my life say whether it was behind my back or in 

 front. I saw that he saw them; but as I came to his 

 side there was a soft swishing sound in the grass some 

 fifty yards away, and for an instant the strangest con- 

 glomeration imaginable of sticking up and sticking out 

 tails whisked off before me, and yet one single lioness or 

 lion I could not see. 



They had been sunning themselves, as had my first band, 

 on the other side of an ant heap, drying the heavy dew off 

 their coats, and of course one or two had lain down with 

 their noses just on the edge of the ant hill looking down their 



