MORE LIONS 51 



stared at intervals, the corners of their cruel mouths 

 drooping. There were quite thirty of them. We 

 dare not provoke them by firing at them in the 

 gloom. Need I say that the events of the morning 

 had rather shaken my nerve, so that I placed but 

 little reliance on the ring of flame around us. 



As we moved along in the forest we came upon 

 a couple of men looking for honey and gathering 

 the nebbuk fruit. These men were responsible for 

 starting a big forest fire. In the Sudan a forest fire 

 goes very slowly. The one difficulty with animals 

 is to find a break in it that they will face. We rode 

 up and down this one for a long time on the hot 

 embers, galloping here and there for a gap, which 

 closed before we got to it. At length we managed 

 to get through ; the first to pass had to jump off, and, 

 with loose sacks or coats, to beat down the flames 

 on either side in order to prevent the gap closing. 

 Once through our way was easy. 



At a dried-up fula, north of J. Abu Likri, the fiki 

 was so sure that he knew the way that I let the two 

 Turda men go, as, after the first day, they had found 

 camel-riding too sore for them. The fiki, however, led 

 us sadly astray, and put on long miles to our journey; 

 so much so that, when a few hours from our destina- 

 tion, J. Deigo, I had to leave the bulk of the men 

 and camels to rest awhile, while I pushed on in order 

 to secure the wells for ourselves. My camels were not 

 off-saddled from the start at 6 a.m. (the fiki had said 

 that he would miss his landmarks if we travelled by 

 night) till 4.30 P.M. 



