FROM GILGIL TO KENIA 271 



above their heads and go to sleep without watch or guard. 

 So far as I could learn they are scarcely ever molested. I 

 did hear of one boy on the Nzoia dragged from such a fire 

 by his leg, but in that case the leopard was the aggressor. 

 Here, however, the lions are very bold, though not nearly 

 as numerous. Last night two of them united in an attack 

 on a very well fenced munyata (I examined the thick thorn 

 fence; it was seemingly impenetrable and quite eight feet 

 high). They leaped this high strong thorn barrier, that 

 the Massai had carefully built to protect themselves and 

 their prized cattle, and landing in the dense pack of beasts 

 that are always crowded for the night within the circle of 

 wattle huts, drove the herd in wild panic against the thorn 

 barrier that blocks the kraal entrance. Through this 

 the cattle burst and then, in spite of spears and firebrands, 

 the lions pulled down two fine cows. The Massai drove 

 them from the one that lay a few yards from their kraal, 

 but the second the lions dragged two or three hundred 

 yards into the grass and devoured at leisure. The necks 

 of the cows were broken. 



By our camp of yesterday, the men pointed out to me 

 the grave of one of their fellow-porters who was taken 

 from his tent when they were on sefari here a year ago. 

 They drove the lion off and many shots were fired at him, 

 but in the pitchy darkness he was not hit; his victim died 

 almost at once. Strangely enough when only three months 

 afterward they were camped at the same spot, another boy 

 was seized, but he somehow managed to free himself, 

 and escaped with slight hurts. The lion also escaped. 



There is little game in this part of the country (I 

 was camped twenty miles back from the swamp when 

 writing) and this is probably the reason of their exceeding 

 boldness. Buffalo there are, but then these can take good 

 care of themselves, and lion seem to leave them alone. 



The Massai spear, seven feet long, looks, and indeed 



