i 9 8 
EAST AFRICA AND ITS BIG GAME. 
effect, as the creature rapidly disappeared. Having 
proceeded about a quarter of a mile farther, I 
saw some ostriches, and was debating whether I 
should try and stalk them or not, when one of my 
men gave a low whistle, to attract my attention, and 
standing broadside to me, not forty yards away, was a 
magnificent lion ; he was looking at the ostriches, and, 
like myself, so busy debating the chances of a good 
stalk, that he neither saw nor heard me. He looked 
truly magnificent and quite the king of the forest at 
that moment; but though full of admiration, I lost no 
time in letting off my 450° rifle. With a deep roar 
he bounded off, and fearing that I had not planted the 
bullet in the right place, I gave him the other barrel. 
This time I aimed for the back of his head, and, as I 
afterwards found, with great accuracy, though the bullet 
had only penetrated the skin and then glanced all along 
his skull, coming out just above the upper lip. As 
he disappeared after this shot in a thick clump of 
bush, some twenty yards off, I waited a quarter of an 
hour before taking up the tracks ; I then did not have to 
penetrate far before I came upon him stone dead, my 
first bullet having penetrated the heart. He measured 
nine feet five inches from the tip of his nose to the 
tip of his tail as he lay, and the skin when removed, 
without any stretching, measured eleven feet, and that 
too with rather a short tail. He had a fair amount of 
mane, which is rare, as it generally gets torn out by 
the bushes. I was immensely pleased, as I had given 
up almost all hopes of ever getting a good chance at 
