180 THE LION 



to gladden their eager eyes, but with one final 

 strangled "baa" the victim yielded up her 

 gentle spirit^ — they had shot the goat ! 



Personally I am not a lover of night work. I 

 find in my experience that after a long and 

 fatiguing day's shooting, in the course of which 

 the hunter may have covered anything between 

 20 and 30 miles, it is extremely difficult to keep 

 awake while sitting up in a cramped position; 

 and, added to this, the danger to health involved 

 thereby is out of all proportion to the measure of 

 usual success. But it must be confessed that to 

 those who desire to shoot the cunning and elusive 

 lion, it constitutes, I suppose, the only fairly 

 certain means whereby, with perseverance, good- 

 luck, and several other inestimable advantages of 

 a like kind, success may be attained. 



Of course, although the opportunities of doing 

 so are on the whole very rare, an encounter 

 with lions by daylight can be undertaken with 

 much more certainty than when one is dependent 

 upon artificial light not only to shoot him by, but 

 also for the no less important and even exciting 

 incidents which at times follow the shot. Putting 

 aside this uncertainty, I think all lion-hunters are 

 agreed that if the beast be wounded, and the 

 range over 50 yards, he will retreat much oftener 

 than he will charge. Lions are, as a matter of 

 fact, very easy beasts to kill if the hunter be cool 

 and the rifle held straight ; but a time will 

 assuredly come to everybody, even the coolest 

 and most capable, when, by an unforeseen hap- 

 pening of some sort, the little mistake will be 



