34 PEACE: LION HUNTING 



little with my Mombakush hunters, and through 

 them with the bushmen in the camp, we often 

 discussed the habits of lions, and especially when 

 and why they roared. The psalmist of the Bible 

 says that " the lions roaring after their prey do 

 seek their meat from God/' but I doubt if this is 

 strictly true in natural history, since a lion 

 would hardly start his night's hunt by uttering so 

 general a warning. Some of my hunters told me 

 that a lion would roar after finishing a meal, if 

 that was the last of the buck he had killed ; but 

 if he had killed a big buck, meaning to return to 

 the same kill two or three nights running, he 

 would only roar after the last and final meal off 

 that particular animal. Perhaps they were trying 

 to " pull my leg." At times I have heard lions 

 make a short, grunting noise, probably to keep in 

 touch when hunting or trying to drive game to 

 one another. 



We made fairly good time from Diriko to 

 Mucusso, the last Portuguese fort, and the farthest 

 east outpost in Southern Angola. On the other 

 side of the river is the German mission school, a 

 lonely outpost of the Church, where the mail only 

 arrives once a year, when the wagon goes down to 

 Grootfontein for supplies in May after each wet 

 season. 



We camped several days at Mucusso, and I was 

 able to purchase some flour and a few other supplies 

 at the fort. As from now onwards there would 

 be no road or track of any kind, it was a matter 



