TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 59 
High above us, sailing round and round majesti- 
cally, were many vultures. Sometimes one would 
swoop low, to rise again. It was plain from the 
screaming of the birds a kill was at hand. We 
pushed on, an indescribable excitement gripping 
me. I regarded every bush furtively. What secrets 
might it not hold ? Abreast of it, passed it. Nothing ! 
I had a taut feeling of strained relief ; I glanced 
at Cecily, but you could not guess her feeling 
from her face. I felt I should like to walk, to feel 
terra firma beneath my feet, and grasp my rifle instead 
of reins ; but Clarence had said nothing, and plodded 
along by my side. He was walking, but four hunters 
were mounted. 
In a slightly open space — the whole of the sandy 
waste was dotted here with bushes taller than a man 
— we came on what had once been a graceful aoul, 
mangled and torn. The lions had dined, and that 
heavily, only the shoulders of the gazelle being left. 
The sand was tossed up and ploughed into furrows in 
the death struggle, and from the scene of the last phase 
wound a lion track going towards a thick bunch of 
thorn. It seemed likely the lions were lying up in the 
immediate vicinity. The lion feeds in a very business- 
like manner, and after a kill gorges himself to reple- 
tion, then, not to put too fine a point on it, goes a little 
way off, is violently and disgustingly sick, after which 
he returns and gorges some more. Then he sleeps, off 
and on, for perhaps three days, when he hunts again. 
When hunting, immense distances are covered, and 
though he hunts alone, his mate comes up with him 
