NEARING THE LION COUNTRY 61 



the boys bolted immediately ; Boombo simply 

 disappeared. 



This was my first sight of wild lions, and I fear, 

 though it is unpleasant to make the admission, 

 that I must have been a little excited also. I had 

 two very close, though necessarily quick shots, 

 one at each lion as they broke across the open 

 patch one behind the other, but hit neither. I 

 felt certain afterwards that had they been two big 

 buck instead of lions I should have killed them 

 both. We burnt the two lions out of their patch 

 of bush with a fire, and later on burnt them out 

 of another patch as well, but in both cases they 

 broke on the side opposite to which I had posted 

 myself. Thus we never caught sight of them 

 again, and finally, getting into a patch of thick 

 bush where the grass had already been burnt, and 

 having no dogs, we were forced to leave them. 

 Airedales have the best name for this sort of work, 

 but I am looking forward on my next trip to taking 

 with me some Australian cattle dogs to see how 

 they shape : I think they should be just the thing. 

 No dog with a bull strain in it is of much use, for 

 its nature inclines it to make a rush on the lion, 

 which means inevitably a sudden end. 



The dogs are wanted simply to tease and 

 attract the big beast's attention ; moreover, at 

 night a camp is not really quite safe without a dog. 

 A good pack of dogs would have made all the 

 difference to us on this expedition, and I had 

 counted on picking up some in German S.W. ; 



