TO THE UASIN GISHU 
355 
either side high grass and dwarfed and scattered thorn- 
trees. Down this we beat for a couple of miles. Then, 
suddenly, a maned lion rose a quarter of a mile ahead of the 
line and galloped off through the high grass to the right; 
and all of us on horseback tore after him. 
He was a magnificent beast, with a black and tawny 
mane; in his prime, teeth and claws perfect, with mighty 
thews, and savage heart. He was lying near a hartebeest 
on which he had been feasting; his life had been one un¬ 
broken career of rapine and violence; and now the maned 
master of the wilderness, the terror that stalked by night, 
the grim lord of slaughter, was to meet his doom at the 
hands of the only foes who dared molest him. 
It was a mile before we brought him to bay. Then 
the Dutch farmer, Mouton, who had not even a rifle, but 
who rode foremost, was almost on him; he halted and 
turned under a low thorn-tree, and we galloped past him to 
the opposite side, to hold him until the spearmen could 
come. It was a sore temptation to shoot him; but of course 
we could not break faith with our Nandi friends. We 
were only some sixty yards from him, and we watched him 
with our rifles ready, lest he should charge either us, or 
the first two or three spearmen, before their companions 
arrived. 
One by one the spearmen came up, at a run, and grad¬ 
ually began to form a ring round him. Each, when he came 
near enough, crouched behind his shield, his spear in his 
right hand, his fierce, eager face peering over the shield 
rim. As man followed man, the lion rose to his feet. His 
mane bristled, his tail lashed, he held his head low, the upper 
lip now drooping over the jaws, now drawn up so as to 
