He
considered this a great honour.
XXIV.
THE FIFTEEN LIONS.
Two days before Captain D. and I were to return to Juja we approached,
about eleven o'clock in the morning, a long, low, rugged range of hills
called Lucania. They were not very high, but bold with cliffs, buttes,
and broken rocky stretches. Here we were to make our final hunt.
We led our safari up to the level of a boulder flat between two deep
canons that ran down from the hills. Here should be water, so we
gathered under a lone little tree, and set about directing the simple
disposition of our camp. Herbert Spencer brought us a cold lunch, and we
sat down to rest and refreshment before tackling the range.
Hardly had we taken the first mouthfuls, however, when Memba Sasa,
gasping for breath, came tearing up the slope from the canon where he
had descended for a drink. "Lions!" he cried, guardedly. "I went to
drink, and I saw four lions. Two were lying under the shade, but two
others were playing like puppies, one on its back."
While he was speaking a lioness wandered out from the canon and up the
opposite slope. She was somewhere between six and nine hundred yards
away, and looked very tiny; but the binoculars brought us up to her with
a jump. Through them she proved to be a good one. She was not at all
hurried, but paused from time to time to yawn and look about her. After
a short interval, another, also a lioness, followed in her footsteps.
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