TIGER SLAYER BY ORDER 



horns is thirteen inches, and the largest I obtained was 

 fourteen and a half round the curve. 



Girnook are the most difficult antelopes to approach 

 that I know of, their enormously long neck enabling them 

 to see over bushes to a considerable distance. When 

 disturbed they run through the bush with head down and 

 long neck stretched straight out. 



This completes the list of the three varieties of antelope 

 which I shot on our march to Hargesa, where we halted 

 for the night. The next morning, after much hand-shaking 

 with, and presents of cloth, etc., to the Sheik Muttar and 

 his Mullahs, we continued our journey, halting at Arabsea, 

 which we reached without meeting with many adventures 

 worth recording. 



Our stay here, however, was marked by an event of some 

 importance, for it was while encamped at this place that I 

 had the good luck to bag my first lion which, as in the case 

 of my first tiger, recorded in Chapter III., I was fortunate 

 enough to secure with one shot. 



Our zareba at this camp had been very carefully con- 

 structed of felled trees and thorny bushes, both as a pro- 

 tection against wild beasts and possible raid from hostile 

 tribes. It was at night — which I remember was a very 

 dark and stormy one — ^that the lion came prowling round 

 the zareba, and continued for some time to patrol the 

 circuit of the camp, occasionally betraying his presence by 

 low, rumbling growls or deep, guttural sighs. It is difficult 

 to define, accurately, the noise a lion makes on such 

 occasions. 



We could not see to shoot owing to the intense darkness 

 outside the fence, and the bright light of our fires within the 

 camp. Whether the lion had meditated attacking the 

 zareba and was put off by the brightness of our fires, I 

 cannot say. At any rate, after a time he took himself off. 



The next morning early we took up his tracks — which 

 were plainly visible in the soft sand all round us — and 

 following through dense bushes, interspersed with sandy 

 glades, finally marked the beast down in a patch of long 

 grass. 



Telling the men to form line and walk through this 

 grass, I took up my position by the side of an ant-hill, which, 

 176 



