African Game Trails 
539 
she tore; but instead of charging us she 
charged the line of beaters. She was dying 
fast, however, and in her weakness failed 
to catch any one; and she sank down into 
the long grass. Hill and I advanced to look 
her up, our rifles at full cock, and the gun- 
bearers close behind. It is ticklish work 
to follow a wounded lion in tall grass, and 
we walked carefully, every sense on the 
alert. We passed Heller, who had been 
with the beaters. He spoke to us with an 
amused smile. His only weapon was a pair 
of field-glasses, but he always took things 
as they came, with entire coolness, and to be 
close to a wounded lioness when she charged 
merely interested him. A beater came run¬ 
ning up and pointed toward where he had 
seen her, and we walked toward the place. 
At thirty yards distance Hill pointed, and 
eagerly peering, I made out the form of 
the lioness showing indistinctly through the 
grass. She was half crouching, half sit¬ 
ting, her head bent down; but she still had 
strength to do mischief. She saw us, but be¬ 
fore she could turn I sent a bullet through 
her shoulders; down she went, and was 
dead when we walked up. A cub had been 
seen, and another full-grown lion, but they 
had slunk off and we got neither. 
This was a full-grown, but young, lioness 
of average size; her cubs must have been 
several months old. We took her entire to 
camp to weigh; she weighed two hundred 
and eighty-three pounds. The first lion, 
which we had difficulty in finding, as there 
were no identifying marks in the plain of 
tall grass, was a good-sized male, weighing 
about four hundred pounds, but not yet 
full-grown; although he was probably the 
father of the cubs. 
We were a long way from camp, and, 
after beating in vain for the other lion, we 
started back; it was after nightfall before 
we saw the camp fires. It was two hours 
later before the porters appeared, bearing 
on poles the skin of the dead lion, and the 
lioness entire. The moon was nearly full, 
and it was interesting to see them come 
swinging down the trail in the bright silver 
light, chanting in deep tones, over and over 
again, a line or phrase that sounded like: 
“Zon-zon-boule ma ja guntai; zon-zon-boule ma 
ja guntai.” 
Occasionally they would interrupt it by the 
repetition in unison, at short intervals, of a 
guttural ejaculation, sounding like “huz- 
lem.” They marched into camp, then up 
and down the lines, before the rows of 
small fires; then, accompanied by all the 
rest of the porters, they paraded up to the 
big fire where I was standing. Here they 
stopped and ended the ceremony by a min¬ 
ute or two’s vigorous dancing amid singing 
and wild shouting. The firelight gleamed 
and flickered across the grim dead beasts, 
and the shining eyes and black features of 
the excited savages, while all around the 
moon flooded the landscape with her white 
light. 
