A MASAI KRAAL 
165 
CH. VIl] 
injured her spine. Over she rolled, growling savagely, 
and dragged herself into the watercourse; and running 
forward, I finished her with two bullets behind the 
shoulder. She was a big, fat lioness, very old, with 
two cubs inside her ; her lower canines were much 
worn and injured. She was very heavy, and probably 
weighed considerably over three hundred pounds. 
The light was growing dim, and the camp was eight 
or ten miles away. The porters—they are always much 
excited over the death of a lion—wished to carry the 
body whole to camp, and I let them try. While they 
were lashing it to a pole another lion began to moan 
hungrily half a mile away. Then we started ; there 
was no moon, but the night was clear, and we could 
guide ourselves by the stars. The porters staggered 
under their heavy load, and we made slow progress ; 
most of the time Tarlton and I walked, with our 
double-barrels in our hands, for it was a dangerous 
neighbourhood. Again and again we heard lions, and 
twice one accompanied us for some distance, grunting 
occasionally, 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 proximity 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 
