126 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
charging past, with three dogs at his heels, and 
Mahoutcha calling out lustily to me ; but, unfor¬ 
tunately, I was not loaded, and Mahoutcha’s gun 
snapped, so the brute got away. 
We turned out afterwards to try for a rhinoceros 
cow we had seen the day before. We were con¬ 
sulting as to the best means of getting at one, which 
we saw standing at some distance under a tree, when, 
a troop of impalas came charging down, with a fine 
old lioness after them. We went, and saw her 
lying down, but so flat to the ground, head and all, 
that no man could shoot with any certainty; and she 
never for a moment took her eyes from us. When 
we got up to her, she was lying down flat as a plate 
to the ground; but her head might have been on a 
pivot, as her watchful eye glared on us all round, 
without appearing to move her body, as we decreased 
the circle, in the hopes she would stand up and give 
us a fair chance of a shot behind the shoulder. I could 
not place the smallest dependence on Mahoutcha, 
whose face was the colour of boiled liver. As we 
walked round the lioness, he described a circle full a 
dozen yards larger than I did : I therefore, taking 
into consideration that discretion was the better part 
of valour, looked for a tree to climb up, near enough 
to make tolerably sure of my shot. I was just 
getting up one, when the lioness made off: not much 
to my credit, certainly; but in case of a charge, 
Mahoutcha would have been sure to miss, and then 
nothing could have saved us. 
