i 3 2 THE LAND OF THE LION 



cases the Massai are glad of your help, and you may reckon 

 pretty safely on the lion's return to his toothsome "kill." 

 The difficulty is to prevent the owners taking all the meat 

 the lion has left. If you can by purchase or persuasion 

 prevent this, and if the moon is shining, then have a thorn 

 boma, built for yourself, a few yards from the kill, and you 

 have as sure a thing as there is in lion hunting, which is 

 not saying much. I have never been able to induce a lion 

 to come back to his game kill, if it had been disturbed, 

 or if a boma was put up nearby. When there was no 

 game to speak of, and a fat cow had been killed, I have had 

 him come back two nights running and pull a boma, we had 

 built, to pieces, to get at his meal, and, the Massai tell me, 

 it is always so. 



If there are trees close by, there is a much easier and 

 safer way of getting him. Have a place put up in a tree, 

 close as you can get to the kill, and fix yourself so that you 

 will not fall down if you should nod. This can be done near 

 an undisturbed game kill. One man, I know of, killed, in this 

 way, four fine lions, on one lucky night. But I should not 

 advise either of these methods unless there is a moon, 

 and the weather is dry. A soaking cold rain may do you 

 so much harm that even a lion skin will not repay you. 

 The night, too, seems very long, and it is cramping, tedious 

 work. If you have crouched in the bows of your "birch 

 bark" all through a September night, while your hunter 

 has "called" the harmless moose, you will remember well 

 how every bone in your body ached, before the welcome 

 sunbeams came slanting over the dark spruce tops, and 

 the tall frost rimmed swamp grass. But you can make 

 yourself far more comfortable in a canoe, than you can, 

 perched on a tree limb, or crouching behind a thin 

 screen of thorn bush. Still lions are worth trying for in 

 every sort of way. 



The most difficult trophy to get, and I think the finest 



