VI 
A VISIT TO RAS MAKUNAN OF FAT AT, 1893 153 
thorn-bushes and the sound of displaced stones as she rolled 
about. 
I went to camp and fetched a lantern and several men ; and 
taking up the tracks, holding the lantern close to the ground, 
we found a great deal of blood and shreds of her stomach which 
had been dropped as she had galloped across the river-bed. We 
held a whispered conference, and decided that if we waited till 
the morning to follow her up, with this fearful wound she might 
die in the night and hyaenas would spoil the skin. Several men 
then began throwing small stones up on to the hillside amongst 
the bushes where we thought she must be lying, but she refused 
to show her hiding-place. 
The Somalis offered to form line and drive her out by the 
light of the moon. I tried to show them the foolhardiness of 
this ; but as they w T ere bent on it, and further hesitation on my 
part would have been misinterpreted, I arranged a line of twelve 
men with Snider carbines, and placing myself at its head, we 
cautiously worked up the hillside. The leopard was very quiet 
now, and gave no sign. The moon was getting brighter, as it 
had risen well above the horizon clear of the hill and bushes, 
shining down into our faces as we ascended. 
The men w r ere straggling and would not keep proper line, in 
spite of my constant directions. We had made three unsuccess- 
ful casts up and down the hill, when the leopard charged down 
from the top, with a coughing roar, right in our faces. The 
men crowded up round me and I could not fire, — indeed no one 
had time to fire. She came down the hill in three or four 
tremendous bounds, and the next second her shadowy form had 
sprung on Esm&n Abdi, who was next to me on the left, and 
leopard and man, locked together, rolled down the hill, brushing 
past my leg. Liban Guri, the man on the farther side of 
Esm4n Abdi, placed the muzzle of his carbine against the 
leopard’s shoulder, actually singeing the skin, the bullet passing 
through the leopard and ricochetting within a few inches of my 
foot, scattering the gravel over me ; the brute let go Esmdn 
Abdi, or rather Esman let go her, for he had her safe by the 
throat from the first ; and she rolled over in her last agony, 
fixing her claws into everything within reach, until I fired with 
the muzzle against her ribs and settled her. 
Esm&n ran down the hill, and we all followed him, calling 
out to know how much he was wounded ; and when we over- 
took him he said he wasn’t running from the shabel , but was 
