A SLEEPLESS NIGHT IN A ZAREBA 
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him to eat. The row they made was more calculated to 
frighten him out of his wits than to attract him. The heat 
during the night was stifling, and I slept not a wink. 
In the morning my men reported the fresh ‘ pugs ’ of a 
lion, which I discovered had come within 100 yards of us, 
but not within sight of the donkey. There he had lain 
down, then got up and walked quietly away again. The 
ground was so hard, and the grass so thick, that after 
following him for two hours, during which time we 
advanced about half a mile, we were obliged to abandon 
it. I spent another sleepless night, the heat again being 
terrific. A lion ‘ shouted ’ several times about a mile to 
the south of us, but he never put in an appearance. Every 
time he roared, the birds roosting in the bushes would fly 
up screaming, and as the beautiful sound got nearer and 
nearer to us, at one time it was a bit exciting. 
Next day I built a zareba near one of the villages, in 
which I spent a third restless night. As usual, nothing 
came near the donkey, and I was hauled out of the zareba 
at 5 o’clock next morning, having been bitten by ticks and 
‘ bugs ’ of all sorts during another very hot night. Zareba 
work was most unpleasant here. The crickets and grass- 
hoppers chirped and sang the whole night. Huge beetles 
hummed through the air, and either settled above one’s head, 
and fed upon the thorn-bush (which meant an everlasting 
shower of tiny particles of the green leaf falling upon one’s . 
face) or they settled upon one’s face and head, when one 
brushed them off with a start. It was scratch, scratch, 
scratch all night long, as the ants and ticks crawled up 
one’s arms and legs. The noises in the villages seldom 
cease before midnight. The men by your side either go to 
sleep and snore, or toss restlessly to and fro. The donkey 
makes you start up by braying now and then. The moon 
either persists in shining straight into your eyes, or the 
lightning flashes, the thunder rolls, and you are drenched to 
the skin with rain. 
If was after just such a night as I have pictured that I 
