ure never to be forgotten, and rich with a charm that will
surely always send forth its call to the restless soul of the man who
goes back to the city.

Sometimes the evening program is different. When one of us brings in
some exceptional trophy there is a great celebration, with singing and
native dances, and cheers for the Bwana who did the heroic deed. The
first lion in a camp is a signal for great rejoicing and
celebrating--however, that is another story--the story of my first lion.

At nine o'clock the tents are closed and all the camp is quiet in sleep.
Outside in the darkness the askari paces to and fro, and the thick
masses of foliage stand out in inky blackness against the brilliant
tropic night. We are far from civilization, but one has as great a
feeling of security as though he were surrounded by chimneys and
electric lights. And no sleep is sweeter than that which has come after
a day's marching over sun-swept hills or through the tangled reed beds
where every sense must always be on the alert for hidden dangers.

CHAPTER VI

A LION DRIVE. WITH A RHINO IN RANGE SOME ONE SHOUTS "SIMBA" AND I GET MY
FIRST GLIMPSE OF A WILD LION. THREE SHOTS AND OUT

Like every one who goes to Africa with a gun and a return ticket, I had
two absorbing ambitions. One was to kill a lion and the other to live to
tell about it. In my estimation all the other animals compared to a lion
as latitude eighty-seven and a half compares to the north pole. I wanted
to climb out of the Tartarin of Tarascon class of near lion hunters into
the ranks of those who are entitled to remark, "Once, when I was in
Africa shooting lions," etc. A dead lion is bogey in the big game
sport--the score that every hunter dreams of achieving--and I was
extremely eager to make the dream a reality.

When speaking with English sportsmen in London my first question was,
"Did you get any lions?" If they had, they at once rose in my
estimation; if not, no matter how many elephants or rhinos or buffaloes
they may have shot, they still remained in the amateur class.

On the steamer going down to Mombasa the hunting talk was four-fifths
lion and one-fifth about other game. The cripple who had been badly
mauled by a lion was a person of much distinction, even more so than the
ivory hunter who had killed three hundred elephants.

[Photograph: By courtesy of W.D. Boyce. Mr. Stephenson's Lion]

[Photograph: A Post Mortem Inquiry]

On the railway to Nair