560 Great and Small Game of Africa 



priest's words), swelling into an awe-inspiring volume of sound, and anon 

 dying away into a few final coughing grunts — grandly serenades his desert 

 camp at intervals, first approaching, then receding ; the weird but not 

 untuneful howl of a melancholy hysna, in sad sympathy with the wild 

 and lonesome surroundings, contrasting mournfully during their pauses. 

 But unless when, in the early morning, the drifting eddies of silent 

 vultures, besprinkling one quarter of the clear sky as they lazily glide in 

 whirling thousands above the trees, suggest a carouse prolonged into 

 daylight and the remains of a feast still guarded, he may wonder where 

 these noisy midnight prowlers vanish to during daytime. 



Lions have frequently invaded the island of Mombasa itself (probably 

 crossing at low spring-tides when the channel is fordable at one point), and 

 attacked the cattle kept there for slaughter, and several have been killed 

 there at different times. The last instance occurred, I am informed, quite 

 recently, when a lioness was shot by a native with a bow and arrow, 

 and its body was afterwards dragged through the town. In the interior 

 they are sometimes seen in large troops in their favourite resorts. Mr. 

 F. J. Jackson (to whom, as in many other cases, I am under an obligation 

 for interesting notes) once came across twenty-three together near Machakos. 

 I myself have seen a party of about fifteen in the country north-east of 

 Mount Kenia. 



Many of those met with are maneless, or have but insignificant manes, 

 but there are also very fine specimens to be found. Whether local 

 conditions — such as elevation and climate, as some assert — have anything 

 to do with this difference, or whether it is merely a question of individual 

 idiosyncrasy, as is the case with beards among men, I have not been able 

 to arrive at any definite opinion. However this may be, it seems that 

 maneless lions are commonly small, the full-maned specimens being much 

 finer animals. 



I have already expressed my conviction that our lion is no less bold 



