MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 727 



a hurried gorge, and then found he had urgent business ten or twelve miles 

 off. He did this time after time, and we spent the whole of our leave, 

 following him from place to place, vainly trying to make his acquaintance, 

 and finally had to return without an introduction. On one occasion we made 

 certain that we had found him at home. The country generally was the 

 worst possible for tracking ; but on this particular morning our friend had 

 strolled up the bed of a stream, in which his pugs, which were enormous, 

 were very much in evidence. They led into a small strip of elephant grass 

 about 150 yards long by 70 yards wide. Our trackers, who had been sent on 

 ahead to scout, came back to meet the caravan, and told us excitedly that 

 they had tracked his majesty into the small patch of grass, that he had not 

 come out of it, and that they had left men to watch it. On one side of the 

 patch was the river-bed and on the other the low rocky bank running off on 

 to shingly ground, over which it was impossible to track. Anyhow there 

 were the fresh pugs leading from the river-bed into the grass, and there 

 were no apparent tracks out of it, so we believed in our Shikaris' story 

 that they had watched the lion in, and that he had not come out. There 

 was a Kurria (Somali encampment) not far off, to which we sent to borrow 

 the village band instruments, with a view to a beat, and in a short time 

 several tomtoms, the ubiquitous kerosine tin, and various other tin-pots 

 provided material for the making of a very respectable noise. Having 

 collected about twenty men, my friend and I took up our positions behind 

 two friendly babul bushes, about twenty yards from that end of the beat 

 from which he was certain to break, and having given the word for the 

 music to begin at the other end, we anxiously awaited the lion's appearance ; 

 but in vain. After a deafening noise had been kept up for some minutes, we 

 beat the patch carefully to make sure that he was not lying clever,- but there 

 was no sign of him, and it became evident that our scouts had not kept a 

 careful watch over the patch, and that the lion must have sneaked out over 

 the stony ground on the bank side of the cover. After vainly trying to 

 pick up his track and having relieved our feelings to some extent with 

 abuse of the scouts who had made fools of us, we returned disappointed to 

 our camp, which had since been pitched close by. That night our friend 

 was heard roaring round camp from the same rock-strewn ravine, and next 

 day we were again out after him, but did not succeed in finding any trace of 

 him. The next night, however, he killed a donkey, and after having a hurried 

 meal on the spot went clean away. In the morning we tracked him for seven 

 or eight miles and then the trail took us over rocky ground where we lost it. 

 The people of the neighbouring Kurrias told us that the lion was an old one 

 and well known to them, and that he always behaved in this way ; but they 

 assured us that he would be back in two or three days, and begged us to 

 await his return ; but our leave would not admit of it, and we reluctantly had 

 to give up the quest and set our faces seawards again. 



