400 
ELEPHANT-HUNTING IN EAST AFRICA 
CHAP. 
to their own quarters, glad to be quit of us and our disquieting 
troubles. 
Starting from the scene of the tragic scuffle, where the 
ground was marked all about with deep hoof-prints, Juma and 
I had not far to follow the plain groove in the laid grass 
indicating the track of the dragged carcase. It led into a little 
“ donga ” or gully not a hundred yards from camp, and under 
a drooping bushy thorn-tree surrounded by brushwood which 
grew in the very bottom close under the opposite bank. The 
entrance to this cavern-like lair was through a little dark 
opening, like the mouth of a cave, into which the carcase had 
been dragged. Peering into this den, half the donkey could be 
discerned in the gloom, lying in the centre, its head bent under 
the neck. There being no signs of the lions, we entered, and 
found that the whole of the hindquarters had been eaten, while 
the front half was still entire. Just outside the den was a heap 
of rubbish, evidently scraped together, and under it was buried 
part of the animal’s intestines. This we threw to the vultures, 
in order that the only attraction left might be the half-eaten 
carcase inside the den. 
My men worked hard all day at strengthening the “ boma ” 
still more, piling on thorny boughs all round so as to make 
the fence both high and wide, and, if possible, impregnable. 
It was even more important to prevent the donkeys getting 
out, than lions in ; for they were so panic-stricken that the 
least thing was enough to stampede them, and Maftaha declared, 
and I believe truly, that it was the mere scent of the lions 
prowling about that had caused them to break out again last 
night, carrying the mass of thorny branches, forming the boma, 
before them in their mad charge. I meanwhile braced myself 
to the task of setting a gun at the entrance to the den in the 
gully ; for I felt that it was imperative to use every effort to 
compass these marauders’ destruction, in spite of the difficul¬ 
ties I worked under owing to my crippled hand (made still 
sorer by handling my gun). Fortunately I knew, from long 
