obi every eye was on the lookout for lions and
every one gazed with intense interest at the station of Tsavo and
remembered the famous pair of man-eaters that had terrorized that place
some years before.

In Nairobi the men who had killed lions, and those who had been mauled
by them (and there are many of the latter), were objects of vast
concern, and the little cemetery with its many headstones marked "Killed
by lion" added still greater fire to my interest.

[Drawing: _The Jolly Little Cemetery_]

Consequently, when we marched out of Nairobi on the evening of September
twenty-third, with tents and guns and a hundred and twenty men, the
dominating thought was of lions. If ever any one had greater hope and
less expectation of killing a lion I was the one.

We had planned a short trip of from three to five weeks northeast of
Nairobi in what is called the Tana River country. While there are some
lions in that section, as there are in most parts of British East
Africa, it is not considered a good lion country. Buffaloes, rhinos,
hippos, giraffes, and many varieties of smaller game are abundant,
largely because the Tana River is in a bad fever belt and hunting
parties generally prefer to go elsewhere. This preliminary trip was
intended to perfect our shooting, so that later, when in real lion
country, we might be better equipped to take on the king of beasts with
some promise of hitting him.

[Drawing: _Peering for Lions_]

The tree-tops and corrugated iron roofs of Nairobi had hardly dropped
behind a long, sun-soaked hump of the Athi Plains when I began to peel
my eyes inquiringly for lions. All the lion stories that I had heard for
the preceding few months paraded back and forth in my memory, and if
ever a horizon was thoroughly scanned for lion, that horizon just out of
Nairobi was the one. Hartebeests in droves loped awkwardly away from the
trail and then turned and looked with wondering interest at us. Zebras,
too fat to run, trotted off, and also turned to observe the invaders.
Gazelles did the same, and away off in the distance a few wildebeests
went galloping slowly to a safe distance. They were probably safe at any
distance had they only known it, for up to the hour when I cantered
forth from Nairobi in quest of lions and rhinos I had not shot at
anything for three years, nor hit anything for ten.

Night came on--the black, sudden night of Africa--and we went into camp
four miles from Nairobi without ever h