IX 
THE LION 
329 
directions, but the animal itself was invisible. It 
was time to turn towards home, and I led the way 
through low bush and sandy glades not larger than 
an ordinary room, all of which were so much alike 
that it was difficult to decide whether we had 
examined them before, during the day’s hard march. 
In several places we discovered our own footprints, 
and thus cheerlessly we sauntered homewards, 
tired, and somewhat disgusted at the failure. 
We were within half a mile of the camp, and 
I was pushing my way through some dwarf green 
nabbuk about 5 feet high, when, upon breaking 
into a small open glade, a large lion with a dark 
shaggy mane started to its feet from the spot where 
it had been lying, probably half asleep. I instantly 
fired, before it had time to bound into the thick 
jungle, and with tremendous roars it rolled over 
beneath the dense nabbuk bushes, where at this 
late hour the shade was almost dark. As quick as 
possible I fired a second shot, as it was rolling over 
and over, with extraordinary struggles, and it 
disappeared in the almost impervious bush, drag¬ 
ging its hind legs in such a manner that I felt sure 
the spine was broken by the bullet. It was so 
dark that we could not discern the figure of the 
animal beneath the thorns, although it was only a 
few feet distant. Having reloaded, I hardly knew 
what course to pursue; we had no means of 
driving the lion from the bush, I therefore ex¬ 
amined the ground, and we discovered that the 
nabbuk into which it had retreated was simply an 
