ich caused poor Bhoota's death was the last I
managed to shoot in East Africa, I saw several others afterwards while
travelling up and down the line at different times on construction
work. In particular, I remember one very curious incident which
happened early on the morning of June 2, when I was travelling towards
Nairobi, accompanied by Dr. McCulloch. The Doctor was going home on
leave in the course of a few days, and was bemoaning to me his bad luck
in never having shot or even seen a lion all the time he had been in
the country. We were standing on the engine at the time, facing each
other, he with his back to the north.

"My dear Mac," I said, "it is because you don't look out for them."

"Rubbish," he retorted; "I do nothing else when I am out hunting."

"Well," I replied, "are you really very anxious to shoot one before you
go home?"

"I would rather get a lion than anything else in the world," was the
emphatic reply.

"Very good, then. Sultan," I called to the driver, "stop the engine."

"Now, Mac," I continued, as the train was quickly brought to a
standstill, "here's a chance for you. Just jump off and bag those two
over there."

He turned round in blank astonishment and could hardly believe his eyes
when he saw two fine lions only about two hundred yards off, busily
engaged in devouring a wildebeeste which they had evidently just
killed. I had spotted them almost as soon as Mac had begun to talk of
his bad luck, and had only waited to tell him until we got nearer, so
as to give him a greater surprise. He was off the engine in a second
and made directly for the two beasts. Just as he was about to fire one
of them bolted, so I called out to him to shoot the other quickly
before he too made good his escape. This one was looking at us over his
shoulder with one paw on the dead wildebeeste, and while he stood in
this attitude Mac dropped him with a bullet through the heart. Needless
to say he was tremendously delighted with his success, and after the
dead lion had been carried to the train and propped up against a
carriage, I took a photograph of him standing beside his fine trophy.

Three days after this incident railhead reached Nairobi, and I was
given charge of the new division of the line. Nairobi was to be the
headquarters of the Railway Administration, so there was an immense
amount of work to be done in converting an absolutely bare plain, three
hundred and twenty-seven miles from the nearest pl