VII 
JOURNEY TO WEB BE SHABELEH RIVER 
181 
them till noon, the sun being fearfully hot ; but either through 
the unskilfulness of my trackers, or through the absence of blood 
on the track causing me to lose heart in the fearful heat, we 
had to leave the trail at a stony ravine ; and in the afternoon 
returned to camp, tired out. 
Swallowing some food, I took a short sleep ; and towards 
sunset went out again with Geli and Hassan into the bush to 
the west. Suddenly Geli pointed, and saying “ Libah!” (Lions) 
started to run across an open plain of bare red earth ; and 
there, three hundred yards away, were a lioness and young lion 
reclining by the stem of a tall, shady thorn-tree, looking at us. 
I had been searching for rhinoceros, and was burdened with 
my double four-bore rifle, so when Geli started running he at 
once got ahead of me, and Hassan, carried away by excitement, 
followed suit. The brutes, seeing three men running across the 
plain towards them, stood up, stretched themselves, and giving 
a toss of the tail and a savage growl, cantered away across the 
sun-baked earth in full view, and plunged into the low mimosa 
jungle beyond. I ran up to Geli much put out, and snatching 
my *577 Express from his hand, and giving him the heavy rifle 
to retard his pace, plunged into the bush and grass after the 
lions, but the grass was so thick and dry that I soon overran 
the almost invisible tracks, and though we made several tries 
back on to the red soil, we eventually lost them, and I returned 
to camp disgusted with the afternoon’s entertainment. 
On the next night we all awoke at the same time, while 
the moon was still low, having been roused by the disturbance 
of the pool ; and we made so much noise in throwing off our 
blankets and getting ready, that a rhinoceros, which had 
come down to the pool, heard us and made off. I fired the 
four-bore, and my bullet caught it in the shoulder, sending it 
galloping up the bank, snorting as before. The beast waited, 
listening close behind my hiding-place for nearly ten minutes ; 
then all sounds ceased, and I thought it must be dead. It had, 
however, slipped quietly away ; so there was nothing to be done, 
and we went to sleep. When we woke again the moon was well 
up, it being about two o’clock in the morning. Geli had 
awakened me, having seen something pass among the bushes on 
our bank of the river, between my hiding-place and the camp. 
The moon was throwing a fine light on the limestone slabs 
which composed the floor of the river-bed, and as we gazed in 
the direction in which Geli pointed, rubbing our eyes, we saw 
