30 Three Months' Leave in Somali Land. 



300 yards away, worked it carefully through and 

 found tracks going into another large, dense bit 

 of thorn and grass. Took the track with much 

 difficulty into the very thickest of it. Lion got 

 up within five yards of me, in grass eight feet 

 high, and though I could see the grass move, &c, 

 I could not see a hair of the beast. Fired the bit, 

 I sitting ahead on the look out. Horseman seeing 

 the fire and hearing my men (two only) shouting 

 came and joined in, but exactly in the direction I 

 wanted quiet, viz., behind me. I could not get 

 him away by frantic signals ; he paraded up and 

 down about thirty yards behind me. Lion broke 

 back throuo-h unburnt bit on the rigfht, and went 

 into a very long bit of dense cover, too large to 

 fire, and too dense to follow a possibly angry lion 

 into. I, at least, concluded it not good enough ; 

 odds too much with the lion. My people want me 

 to move to Dhorke, shall start this evening. 



Abyssinians at haria, two miles off, went to see 

 them. They have the boss of this section of the 

 Deaden with them, who tells me that he has 

 arranged with the Abyssinians to give them so 

 much from each karia, so I did not interfere. 

 Seven Abyssinians, armed with Remingtons, say 



