IV 
GO VERNMENT EX PL ORA TIONS 
99 
day had caught them while still in the open, on their way back 
to the bush to lie up for the day. These horsemen had been on 
their way to Ujaw&ji from Jifa to perform the dibdltig at our 
camp, but seeing the lions, and knowing that we were keen to 
get at them, they had circled them in, and compelled them to sit 
down on the plain and wait for us. Posting six vedettes, they 
had then come to give the news. 
It was now about one o’clock and very hot, but we pressed 
on, resisting all temptation to fire at any of the game around for 
fear of disturbing the lions ; for a shot can be heard at a great 
distance on these plains. Towards four o’clock we saw one of 
the vedettes looming out of the haze, and then another. It was, 
however, a long time before we could make out the lions, which 
the men were pointing out. They were five hundred yards away, 
trying to take shelter from the pitiless sun in a patch of grass 
about two feet high ; all we could see being two indistinct dark 
spots half hidden in grass, and on one of these moving slightly, 
we recognised it to be the head of a remarkably fine lion. Beyond 
the lions, more than half a mile away, was another horseman, 
sitting motionless in the saddle, and looking like a waving palm- 
tree, the horse’s legs appearing elongated in the haze and mirage. 
The Somalis who had been watching the brutes said they had 
been in this spot all day, getting up to roar now and then, but, 
knowing by experience the powers of the Somali horsemen in 
the open, they had not attempted to make a bolt towards the 
bush, which loomed up in a quivering blue line some ten miles 
to the north. Considering the heat of the sun, and that they 
had neither food nor water, these horsemen had stuck to the 
lions with great perseverance, and we felt that we owed it to 
them to crown their hard work by straight shooting. 
We guessed that the brutes must be in an uncommonly bad 
temper after having been kept out in the full glare of the sun 
for ten hours : for lions like to sleep under the shade of dense 
bush during the heat of the day. The grass in this part of the 
plain was fresh and green, and looked almost like an English 
lawn, there having been rain about three weeks previous. We 
dismounted, and my brother and I, each accompanied by a 
Somali, walked towards the lions. 
The account of what followed is taken partly from what I 
saw, and partly from E -’s verbal description ; for, being 
unconscious part of the time, I was not in a condition to know 
all that passed. 
