364 
THE NEW AFRICA 
like a wooden peg, and stood growling over him, while the 
other two, rooted to the spot with terror, could only shout 
‘ MoJcui ukei ? ’ ‘ Mokui ukei ? ’ ‘ Where is the white man ? ’ ‘ Where 
is the white man ? ’ At that moment he was one hundred 
and twenty yards away, and fired, hitting the lioness behind 
the shoulder. She looked round, and would have charged 
at the shot, hut that Gumpo, feeling her grasp relax on him, 
endeavoured to free himself, when she took him across the 
buttocks and shook him as a cat does a rat. Meanwhile the 
white man, approaching a few yards nearer again, hit her behind 
the shoulder, when she dropped Gumpo, and once more looked 
like charging, standing for a few seconds undecided how to 
act, just long enough for the white man to load and take aim 
at her neck, and this time she dropped stone dead to the shot. 
Gumpo, feeling himself released, quite dazed in the reaction 
from the mauling and shaking he had received, ran off heedless 
of sb |S to stop, and continued running until he dropped from 
shee* exhaustion and shock. He was carried home, where 
he had his wounds attended to, and eventually recovered from 
his hurts. 
While resting here Hammar and I played a game at cards, 
much to the mystification of the natives, who looked on in grave 
wonder, evidently deeply interested, until we had finished, when 
the head man amongst them reverently asked us what the 
result of our ‘ bone throwing ’ had revealed to us. We could not 
resist the temptation of telling him we had learnt that Hammar 
was to receive a beautiful pipe—the stake we had played for 
and which he had won—on his arrival in Mongwato. He 
appeared sadly disappointed to think that we had wasted 
so much time, and invoked the intervention of our favourite 
spirits, causing them so much trouble, for so trivial a considera¬ 
tion, and probably went away with the impression that we 
were a ‘ poor lot.’ 
On ahead we passed a backwater creek of the Zouga river 
round which we were obliged to travel. The banks of this creek 
harboured many guinea-fowl very wild to get at. The country 
