Sporting Trips of a Subaltern 



if we were not to be benighted in the jangle, 

 when a lion walked slowly between two bushes 

 some forty yards only ahead of me. 



My first impression of a lion in his natural 

 state will always remain very vividly with me ; 

 he bears about as much resemblance to the 

 caged beast as a man who had been shut up 

 between iron bars for years, perhaps for all his 

 life, might bear to the most perfectly trained 

 athlete whose days had been spent in the open 

 air and in the hardest forms of exercise. The 

 suggestion of strength and activity was almost 

 appalling, and for a moment I found myself 

 wondering how such a beast could be killed, 

 and almost wishing myself well out of it. 



I forgot to mention that five well-mounted 

 Somalis were following us some 500 yards behind ; 

 we were on foot. A whistle brought up the horse- 

 men, and, spreading out in line, they galloped on ; 

 they viewed him immediately, and marked him 

 down in a very heavy clump of bush. They then 

 lined up beyond the bush, while Eustace and I 

 advanced straight at it. Slowly, with rifles cocked, 

 we drew near, and were within ten yards, and 

 I was almost hoping he wasn't there when, with 

 a fearful snarling roar, he was out. Bang ! bang ! 

 went our rifles, and he was in again. He now 

 kept up an incessant and most unnerving roaring, 

 while all I could see was his tail that he was 



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