400 ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA chap. 



to their own quarters, glad to be quit of us and our disquieting 

 troubles. 



Starting from the scene of the tragic scuffle, where the 

 ground was marked all about with deep hoof-prints, Juma and 

 I had not far to follow the plain groove in the laid grass 

 indicating the track of the dragged carcase. It led into a little 

 " donga " or gully not a hundred yards from camp, and under 

 a drooping bushy thorn-tree surrounded by brushwood which 

 grew in the very bottom close under the opposite bank. The 

 entrance to this cavern-like lair was through a little dark 

 opening, like the mouth of a cave, into which the carcase had 

 been dragged. Peering into this den, half the donkey could be 

 discerned in the gloom, lying in the centre, its head bent under 

 the neck. There being no signs of the lions, we entered, and 

 found that the whole of the hindquarters had been eaten, while 

 the front half was still entire. Just outside the den was a heap 

 of rubbish, evidently scraped together, and under it was buried 

 part of the animal's intestines. This we threw to the vultures, 

 in order that the only attraction left might be the half-eaten 

 carcase inside the den. 



My men worked hard all day at strengthening the " boma " 

 still more, piling on thorny boughs all round so as to make 

 the fence both high and wide, and, if possible, impregnable. 

 It was even more important to prevent the donkeys getting 

 out, than lions in ; for they were so panic-stricken that the 

 least thing was enough to stampede them, and Maftaha declared, 

 and I believe truly, that it was the mere scent of the lions 

 prowling about that had caused them to break out again last 

 night, carrying the mass of thorny branches, forming the boma, 

 before them in their mad charge. I meanwhile braced myself 

 to the task of setting a gun at the entrance to the den in the 

 gully ; for I felt that it was imperative to use every effort to 

 compass these marauders' destruction, in spite of the difficul- 

 ties I worked under owing to my crippled hand (made still 

 sorer by handling my gun). Fortunately I knew, from long 



