266 SAFARI 



Then a superb plunging rush by the King of Beasts. 

 The black line held. What magnificent cotirage it 

 takes to stand unarmed, save for a slender little 

 spear before a charging lion, only one who has stood 

 with chilling blood and watched it can ever realize. 



With a last mad roar the lion sprang. Simulta- 

 neously a salvo of spears shot from a score of hands. 

 Taking the tearing claws on their shields the nearest 

 blacks crouched low. Others rose full height and 

 added their shafts to those already buried deep in the 

 flesh of the quivering torso. 



A brief dusty melee, the dying lion and sweating 

 blacks miraculously intermingled; then the long 

 drawn cry of triimiph from the warriors. 



More than once I saw the lion maul the spearsmen 

 in these fracases. More than once it was clear to me 

 that the lion was fighting with his back to the wall, 

 at bay, knowing the odds were against him; yet he 

 fought on, and died fighting. 



It was with these impressions behind me that I 

 entered Tanganyika, combining my party with 

 Carl Akeley's. We camped on the edge of the great 

 plain that sloped gently upward to the mountains. 

 We knew we were going to get lions. Nightly they 

 roared about us. But as yet we had encountered 

 none of the herds that we had come so far to see. 



Next day Phil Percival came in with a wide grin 

 on his face that meant success. Quickly he told us 



