WATERHOLE THRILLS 85 



vibrated like gyroscopes. Finally, even the gennet 

 cats grew wise; for instead of snapping at the meat 

 which was hung from a cross wire suspended between 

 two poles and which served as bait to lead our quarry 

 to the disk spring which would start the flash, they 

 climbed up the poles and across the wire and there 

 devotired the meat. Once or twice we caught them 

 at it; and it was funny to see them like tightrope 

 walkers, cautiously making their way across the rope, 

 every once in a while pausing and making their 

 little noses go like rabbits, sniffing the air as if for- 

 danger. 



Sometimes for my flashlight work on the beasts of 

 prey I had to use bait to supplement the waterhole 

 lure. I remember one night waiting with Osa in a 

 blind near one of the marsh-like holes where we had 

 placed a dead zebra. Before sunset forty of my boys 

 had dragged the carcass about for a couple of hours in 

 order to leave a scent for the lions to follow. 



Then we took into our boma the electric wire lead- 

 ing to the charge of magnesium powder we had 

 placed behind our camera near the bait. With us we , 

 had only our guns and an electric torch. 



Until ten o'clock nothing showed up except hun- 

 dreds of zebra and all the common game that we had 

 kept away while working about during the day. 

 Five giraffes stood under a tree nearby and nibbled 

 at the tender young buds among the thorns. 



