424 
AFRICAN HUNTING. 
but I ordered Ferus to be saddled, who was also 
not at all fresh, having had a tremendous burst in 
the morning across a flat, after a lean eland cow. 
Just after I caught sight of about twenty-five 
Masaras sitting down, all armed to the teeth with 
shields and assegais, my attention was attracted to a 
Kaffir skull, which struck me as a bad omen, and the 
thought entered my head, that it might be my fate 
to lay mine to bleach there. I did not, however, 
suffer this thought to unnerve me, but proceeded, 
and found that the lion had decamped. The Masaras 
followed his spoor about a couple of miles, when he 
broke cover. I did not see him at first, but gave 
chase in the direction in which the Masaras pointed, 
saw him, and followed for about 1,000 yards, as 
he had a long start, when he stood in a nasty thorn 
thicket. I dismounted at about sixty or seventy 
yards, and shot at him; I could only see his outline, 
and that very indistinctly, and he dropt so instanta¬ 
neously, that I thought I had shot him dead. I 
remounted and reloaded, and took a short circle, 
and stood up in my stirrups to catch a sight of him. 
His eyes glared so savagely, and he lay crouched in 
so natural a position, with his ears alone erect, the 
points black as night, that I saw in a moment I had 
missed him ; I was then about eighty yards from 
him, and was weighing the chances of getting a shot 
at him from behind an immense ant-heap, about 
fifteen yards nearer. I had just put the horse in 
motion with that intention, when on he came with a 
