ng the top part of the lion's doorway, the ends hanging down
to the ground on either side of the opening; and to these were
fastened, strongly secured by stout wire, short lengths of rails placed
about six inches apart. This made a sort of flexible door which could
be packed into a small space when not in use, and which abutted against
the top of the doorway when lifted up. The door was held in this
position by a lever made of a piece of rail, which in turn was kept in
its place by a wire fastened to one end and passing down to a spring
concealed in the ground inside the cage. As soon as the lion entered
sufficiently far into the trap, he would be bound to tread on the
spring; his weight on this would release the wire, and in an instant
down would come the door behind him; and he could not push it out in
any way, as it fell into a groove between two rails firmly embedded in
the ground.

In making this trap, which cost us a lot of work, we were rather at a
loss for want of tools to bore holes in the rails for the doorway, so
as to enable them to be fastened by the wire to the chain. It occurred
to me, however, that a hard-nosed bullet from my .303 would penetrate
the iron, and on making the experiment I was glad to find that a hole
was made as cleanly as if it had been punched out.

When the trap was ready I pitched a tent over it in order further to
deceive the lions, and built an exceedingly strong boma round it. One
small entrance was made at the back of the enclosure for the men, which
they were to close on going in by pulling a bush after them; and
another entrance just in front of the door of the cage was left open
for the lions. The wiseacres to whom I showed my invention were
generally of the opinion that the man-eaters would be too cunning to
walk into my parlour; but, as will be seen later, their predictions
proved false. For the first few nights I baited the trap myself, but
nothing happened except that I had a very sleepless and uncomfortable
time, and was badly bitten by mosquitoes.

As a matter of fact, it was some months before the lions attacked us
again, though from time to time we heard of their depredations in other
quarters. Not long after our night in the goods-wagon, two men were
carried off from railhead, while another was taken from a place called
Engomani, about ten miles away. Within a very short time, this latter
place was again visited by the brutes, two more men being seized, one
of whom w