CHAPTER IV 



A LION-DRIVE ON LAKE NAKURU 



Lions were not specially included in our programme 

 or our ambitions when we first landed in British East 

 Africa ; for much time expended in vain and many 

 uncomfortable hours endured during my previous expe- 

 dition (in South Africa) in the efi'ort to bag a lion had 

 driven home the conclusion that to secure the king of 

 beasts was beyond my powers. But dis aliter visum. 

 Lions, it may here be remarked, are still sufficiently 

 numerous in British East Africa, especially in those 

 regions where antelopes, zebra and other game so 

 greatly abound, such as the Athi Plains and parts of 

 the great Rift Valley. During our three months' 

 sojourn in East Africa in 1904 we had several camps 

 at which we heard lions calling almost every night, yet 

 never, that year, did we personally see one alive, except 

 on the single occasion which I here propose to relate. In 

 South Africa I enjoyed one glimpse of a lion, and the 

 rough sketch made in my note-book of that sight, 

 which, cursory as it was, must always remain a notable 

 memory, is here translated by Mr. Caldwell. 



It is, perhaps, needless to remark that lions do not 

 roar when hunting at night. It would be a very foolish 

 beast that did so. Their note at night is better de- 

 scribed as a call — a sort of deep, crescendo, resonant 

 cough — and one hears a second, often a third, cough, 

 each further away than the other, showing that the beasts 

 are hunting in concert in a wide wing, and thus they 

 maintain touch with each other. When lions do roar 

 is on returning homewards full, towards daylight, at 



40 



