THE ATHI RIVER 
209 
there nor anywhere else is the lion an easy prize—quite 
the reverse. The element of luck enters large. Both 
in South and East Africa men may spend years and yet 
never chance to see, much less to shoot, a lion. A new¬ 
comer, on the other hand, may fall in with a “ soft ” 
chance in his first week. There is here a system by which 
success may be made fairly secure, to which I refer later. 
The first ravine we tried held a lion. We two were 
in ambush at its mouth, and had sent some twenty-five 
beaters round the flank with specific instructions to go 
in at the extreme head of the gorge. Instead, they had 
commenced to enter when only half-way up. From my 
position (we were commanding the outlet on opposite 
sides) I saw this lazy move, and at once checked it. 
The mischief, however, was done. The lion lay not far 
below the head of the gorge, and, although he remained 
quiescent till the beaters had arrived within 100 yards, 
he had fully appreciated the previous false move, and, 
instead of taking the direct course down the glen, he 
bounded up the steep bank on the south and gained the 
table-land above. 
A mounted Somali hunter, whom I had placed behind 
on the chance of his being able to ride the lion to a stand, 
gave him a bit of a run, but the ground was bad and 
the start too great. 
After this failure we always went one gun with the 
beaters—or, rather, 100 yards in advance—the other 
being posted at the outlet of each gorge. 
It was exciting work for the advanced gun, standing 
in front of each dense clump of bush, or tumbled pile of 
rocks—often when two such holts were being beaten at 
once—while the crowd of yelling savages swarmed in from 
above or behind, and showers of stones came hurtling 
and crashing downwards through the covert. Many of 
these ravines, moreover, had a most “lionous” smell, 
which constantly induced a belief that the king of beasts 
was close by. But this scent was a deception, arising 
from an aromatic shrub. 
During three weeks spent on the Athi we drove 
