168 
AFRICAN GAME TRAILS 
our double-barrels in our hands, for it was a dangerous 
neighborhood. Again and again we heard lions, and twice 
one accompanied us for some distance, grunting occasion¬ 
ally, while we kept the men closed. Once the porters were 
thrown into a panic by a succession of steam-engine-like 
snorts on our left, which announced the immediate proxim¬ 
ity of a rhino. They halted in a huddle while Tarlton and 
I ran forward and crouched to try to catch the great beast’s 
loom against the sky-line; but it moved off. Four miles 
from camp was a Masai kraal, and we went toward this 
when we caught the gleam of the fires; for the porters were 
getting exhausted. 
The kraal was in shape a big oval, with a thick wall of 
thorn-bushes, eight feet high, the low huts standing just 
within this wall, while the cattle and sheep were crowded into 
small bomas in the centre. The fires gleamed here and there 
within, and as we approached we heard the talking and 
laughing of men and women, and the lowing and bleating 
of the pent-up herds and flocks. We hailed loudly, explain¬ 
ing our needs. At first they were very suspicious. They 
told us we could not bring the lion within, because it would 
frighten the cattle, but after some parley consented to our 
building a fire outside, and skinning the animal. They 
passed two brands over the thorn fence, and our men 
speedily kindled a blaze, and drew the lioness beside it. 
By this time the Masai were reassured, and a score of 
their warriors, followed soon by half a dozen women, 
came out through a small opening in the fence, and 
crowded close around the fire, with boisterous, noisy good 
humor. They showed a tendency to chaff our porters. 
One, the humorist of the crowd, excited much merriment 
