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355 
asked the new-comer to hold the lion while he killed 
it with his spear. The other Somali consented and 
seized the lion by the ears. Then the first Somali 
laughed long and loud and said, ‘I’ve held him 
three days, now you hold him three days.’ Then he 
strolled down the road and disappeared. For seven 
days the second Somali held the lion and then by 
the same subterfuge turned it over to a third 
Somali. By this time the lion was pretty tired, so 
after one day the Somali shook the lion hard and 
then took out his knife and stabbed it to death.” 
Sulimani was my second gunbearer. His name 
wasn’t Sulimani, hut some one gave him that name 
because his own Kikuyu name was too hard to pro¬ 
nounce and impossible to remember. Sulimani was 
quite a study. He had the savage’s love of snuff, 
and when not eating or sleeping he was taking 
pinches of that narcotic from an old kodak tin. In 
consequence he had the chronic appearance of being 
full of dope. He walked along as though in a 
trance. He never seemed to be looking anywhere 
except at the stretch of trail directly in front of 
him. His thoughts were far away, or else there 
were no thoughts at all. I often watched him and 
wondered what he was thinking about. 
Sulimani was really one of the best natural hunt¬ 
ers in the whole safari. He had a native instinct 
for tracking that was wonderful; he had courage 
that was fatalistic, and he seemed to know what an 
animal would do and where it would go under 
