THREE LIONS REPORTED 
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presents for fighting. I offered to bandage up all the cuts 
he had received on his face, but he said, No ; he wanted 
backsheesh, so I bundled him out of camp. These petty 
fights were getting serious, as they might lead to some big 
row in which the rifles would have to be used. 
I again sat in my zareba over the dead goat and kid ; the 
former by this time was ‘ not all lavender ’ to the olfactory 
nerves. During the night a striped hyaena came along and 
began eating the carcases. I let him have it in the face, 
and after running after his own tail for a minute, he col- 
lapsed and expired. He had a fine skin. 
After breakfast I made a thorough examination of all 
my skins, and found that the well-known larvae of the 
black beetle with white shoulders had been playing sad 
havoc with some of them. I anointed them freely with 
turpentine, the stock of which I was sorry to find was 
rapidly vanishing. 
At 2 p.m. we marched from Habr Heshi, and encountered 
a number of ‘ gussuli ’ dik-dik. I stalked, I ran, I crawled, 
I crouched, but I could get nowhere near the tantalizing 
little antelopes, which run in triplets as a rule, unlike ‘ guyu ’ 
and ‘ golass ’ dik-diks, which run in pairs. After a mile we 
saw absolutely no game, and no wonder ! for a more parched, 
burnt-up country I never saw, not a green leaf nor a green 
blade of grass to be seen. Certainly a most unpromising 
country to find elephants in. We camped at Godargal as 
the sun set. 
About 9.30 next morning we reached a shallow lake 
called El Deneli. Here I found a huge flock of vulturine 
guinea-fowl with brilliant blue and white feathers on their 
breasts. After a careful stalk I managed to bag three. 
These fowl are excellent eating. 
Some men reported three lions about some villages two 
hours’ march off, so directly my men had finished their rice 
I sent them off there to build a zareba for me. Here I 
discovered that the ears of my lion were beginning to 
‘ smile ’ (smell), which caused the hair outside to ‘ slip ’ — i,e., 
14 
