178 
THE LION. 
On proceeding a little further they were hailed 
by another £ marker/ who told them that the brute 
was crouched in a cluster of brambles, of very limited 
extent, about twenty paces from the very tree in 
which he himself was perched. 
££ As the country w r as pretty open around the 
thicket in question, the sportsmen were enabled to 
reconnoitre it rather narrowly, and that without 
taking the elephants into the very thick of it, which 
was deemed unadvisable, as, had those animals come 
directly upon the lion, they might have been scared 
and rendered unmanageable. But the brute was 
not perceptible. 
££ From the cover being so limited in extent, it 
appeared almost an impossibility that the lion could 
be there, the rather, as the elephants, so remark¬ 
able for their fine sense of smelling, did not seem at 
all aware of his presence, and it was in consequence 
imagined that the man must be mistaken. But as 
he persisted in his story, it was determined to fire 
a shot into the thicket, which was accordingly done, 
though without any result. 
££ When a lion, which has been wounded and hotly 
pursued, has £ lain up/ or hidden himself, for a time, 
his position is generally known either by his roaring, 
panting, or hard breathing; but in this instance 
there were no indications of the kind, which, coupled 
with the shot having failed of effect, confirmed their 
previous impression, and they were, therefore, on 
the point of moving off elsewhere. 
££ But as the £ marker 5 continued asseverating from 
his tree that the beast was positively lying in the 
very brake near to which they were standing, it 
