WILD LIFE ACROSS THE WORLD 



firmly on the ground. The scene that met my eyes 

 I shall never forget. It was the most exciting time of 

 my life to see those Masai advancing step by step, 

 spears poised in the air, daring the lion and lioness 

 to come out. They in turn were engaged in tearing 

 at the earth with their fore-paws and giving vent 

 to the most awful coughs, growls and roars. I 

 managed to secure a moving picture of this scene. 

 Then a strange thing happened. The lioness bolted. I 

 afterwards found out she had dashed at a Somali who 

 had ventured too near. Then the male made a half- 

 hearted charge at a Masai hunter, uttering terrific 

 coughs whilst he did so. I think this is done with the 

 idea of unnerving you. My feeling was that the 

 sound hit me in the chest and vibrated out at my back. 

 Meanwhile, the Masai warriors had got into a 

 pendulum-like movement, but could not get at the 

 lion on account of the short thorn bush. They were 

 outwardly calm, but I saw that every nerve in 

 their bodies was tingling with excitement. I was in 

 the same state, only their object and mine differed. 

 One was to kill and the other was to make a " record," 

 and I was terribly afraid of missing my chance. It 

 was far from being ideal country for our purpose. 

 Had we merely wanted to watch a Hon being speared 

 the thorn scrub would have made things difficult 

 enough, but when it was a matter of taking moving 

 pictures things became doubly so. The lion naturally, 



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