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CH. XII] A NATIVE LION HUNT 
cruel, fearless; as they ran they moved with long 
springy strides. Their head-dresses were fantastic ; they 
carried ox-hide shields painted with strange devices ; and 
each bore in his right hand the formidable war-spear, 
used both for stabbing and for throwing at close 
quarters. The narrow spear-heads of soft iron were 
burnished till they shone like silver; they were four 
feet long, and the point and edges were razor sharp. 
The wooden haft appeared for but a few inches; the 
long butt was also of iron, ending in a spike, so that the 
spear looked almost solid metal. Yet each sinewy 
warrior carried his heavy weapon as if it were a toy, 
twirling it till it glinted in the sun-rays. Herds of 
game — red hartebeests and striped zebra and wild 
swine—fled right and left before the advance of the 
line. 
It was noon before we reached a wide, shallow valley, 
with beds of rushes here and there in the middle, and on 
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 unbroken 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, 
