XVII CAMPING AT EL BOGOI 399 



powers that they insist on imputing to one in spite of himself 

 — were unavailing to prevent the lions playing havoc with my 

 donkeys. Subsequently, I believe, I recovered their good 

 opinion, but, unfortunately, not all my donkeys. Explanations 

 of my inability to see in the dark were considered inadequate, 

 and any allusion to my crippled hand was coldly received ; 

 some manifestation of supernatural powers was clearly expected 

 of me. 



But what I most objected to, and was at last constrained 

 to protest against, was Lesiat's wild statements about the 

 danger we were in, calculated as they were to increase the 

 uneasiness of my already frightened men. He asserted that 

 the lions were certain to attack us, and held out the cheering 

 prospect of our all being eaten eventually, one by one ; escape 

 would be impossible, since we should be followed up remorse- 

 lessly whithersoever we might attempt to retreat. At last, out 

 of patience with his unmanly conduct, I told him I could do 

 no more that night, but that I was prepared to make an effort 

 in the morning, and asked if he could spoor the lions by 

 daylight. To this he replied that he would unfailingly track 

 them to their hiding-place and show me where they were. No 

 doubt he did not expect me to ask him to fulfil this promise. 

 At all events, when, as soon as day had dawned, I turned 

 out with my rifle and sent Juma to summon him, he flatly 

 refused to move a step in the direction in which the carcase 

 had been dragged, declaring that he was going to look for the 

 other donkeys. His line of argument was similar to that of 

 a formerly well-known character among South African gold 

 prospectors, of whom it is told that, when asked to join in a 

 lion hunt in a remote part of the Transvaal bush veldt, where 

 the prospectors' pack-donkeys were being preyed on, he declined 

 on the ground that " He hadn't lost no lions." Even of 

 searching for the lost asses Lesiat made but a poor pretence, 

 he and his men returning in a short time to make a formal 

 declaration that none could be found, and then going their ways 



