g6 THE LAND OF THE LION 



hunt sounds very much like another, to those condemned 

 to read the poor account of it; but to the man following up 

 the lion or a band of lions, there is sure to be interest and 

 variety enough. The wisest and most experienced can never 

 tell what a lion will do. Lion hunting, to my mind, has a 

 charm all its own. Nothing compares with it, and no driv- 

 ing of ravines or swamps, or catching the great cat at his kill, 

 is comparable to the joy and steady excitement of tracking 

 him down. He chooses the ground. You follow him into 

 it. You pit yourself against him. Crouching flat against 

 the yellow earth, covered only, perhaps, by a few inches 

 of grass, he is almost unbelievably hard to see. His rush 

 and spring from a few yards distance, is the fastest thing in 

 the world. No animal can escape it, much less clumsy, 

 slow-footed man. He has a chance to pay off the universal 

 lord and master, the wrongs of the animal world, and here 

 in East Africa the lion's revengeful toll taken on human life 

 and limb mounts high. In the thirteen months I have been 

 on sefari, two white men have been killed by lions and fif- 

 teen mauled badly, to my own knowledge, and these may not 

 include all that have suffered from his claws and fangs. 

 The band we were now following would not permit a close 

 approach. Every half mile or so I could see the rear 

 guard slipping off an ant hill or with ears just raised 

 above the grass watching our approach. They did not seem 

 to fear us, but kept just out of farthest rifle shot. At last, 

 as I mounted a stifnsh ridge, I had just a glimpse down 

 below me, of a regular bunch of lions all trying at the same 

 instant to clear off an ant hill on which they must have been 

 packed together as close as they could be. Innumerable 

 tails and hind legs seemed wrapped and twisted together 

 as the pack tumbled again into the long grass. (This may 

 seem a ludicrous way to speak of the aspect of lions in a 

 pack when disturbed. I searched at the time for words to 

 describe what I saw, and neither then or since can find 



