132 PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 



was consequently deficient. Lions had followed tlie 

 flocks, as usual, and there was great roaring at night, 

 one very noisy fellow coming close to our camp, and 

 causing great commotion. He killed a cow, and in the 

 morning the villagers discovered his lair, and told us of 

 it. We went out, but meantime he had retreated, and 

 taken up his abode on one of the granite hills, behind 

 a huge boulder. We waited at the base of the hill, and 

 the Bedouins climbed over the top from the other side to 

 drive him down, but he escaped along the slope. He 

 was a splendid lion, with the usual short mane. Either 

 the same or another returned to the camp as soon as it 

 was dark, and treated us to the usual serenade. 



The country around Rairo is unusually granitoid, and 

 the hills barren and tor-like. On the 15th August we 

 marched back into the Lebka valley, encamping at a 

 place called Wonber Harattib, a little below Aualid Oret. 

 I shot several birds on the road {Gymnoris canicapillus, 

 JEmberiza flaviventris, &c.), and was helping to skin 

 some of them, when a camel-man rushed in to say that 

 some lions had come down, and one of them had seized 

 a camel. We were all very soon upon the spot, not a 

 quarter of a mile from our camp. It wanted quite half 

 an hour to sunset. On a low rise in front lay a fine lion, 

 a little below him was a second, whilst amongst the 

 bushes, only sixty yards from us, was a huge tawny 

 mass, quite undistinguishable at first, until a slight 

 movement of one portion served to guide the eye. The 

 camel lay on its side, and a lioness had seized it by the 

 throat, and was holding it down. The slight movement 



