84 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



in the man's face, I could not help asking for a 

 little further explanation. He looked at me 

 in a sympathetic manner, and went on to make 

 the whole matter plain. " Well," said he, " what 

 would you do if you suddenly shoved your nose 

 into the middle of a high-grade cayenne pepper 

 proposition ? Sneeze, wouldn't you ? Of course 

 you would, and — so does the bally lion ! Now 

 as soon as you start to sneeze, you chuck your 

 head up, don't you ? Well, so does the bally 

 lion, and, of course, he dashes his brains in against 

 the jagged stone of the arch ! " 



Questioned as to his record lion bag in one 

 night, the hero of the foregoing narrative remarked, 

 '' Never more than five between dusk and dawn 

 with the pepper trick, young man ; but I remem- 

 ber killing fifteen in a quarter of an hour, back 

 in '91, with a rifle. It was this way," he went on. 

 " I was camped on the Angwa River one dark 

 night, and the lions were grunting all round my 

 camp. There was a little mound just in front 

 of my tent, and presently I saw two beads of 

 fire peering at me over the mound. I knew there 

 was a lion close at hand, so I loaded my Martini 

 and fired — fired right between the eyes. I'm 

 a pretty fair shot, I am, and I knew I'd hit ; but 

 when I looked again there were them two beads 

 still peerin' at me out of the dark. ' Queer,' I 

 remarked to myself, and got in a second shot. 

 But the eyes were still there. Again I took a 

 careful aim and pulled the trigger, and still the 

 beads stared at me. Well, to cut a long story 

 short, I fired fourteen times, and after the 

 fourteenth shot I was, as you may imagine, 

 fairly disgusted at what I thought was my wicked 

 shooting. ' Here goes for the last attempt,' 



