But My Surprise Was Great When I Cautiously Laid It Against The Tree, And Then Directed Its Muzzle To The Spot Where I Had Seen Him Stand.

Looking further away - to where the grass was thin and scant - I saw the animal bound along at a great rate, and that it was a lion:

The noble monarch of the forest was in full flight! From that moment I ceased to regard him as the "mightiest among the brutes;" or his roar as anything more fearful in broad daylight than a sucking dove's.

The next day was also a halt, and unable to contain my longing for the chase, where there used to be such a concourse of game of all kinds, soon after morning coffee, and after despatching a couple of men with presents to my friend Ma-manyara, of ammonia-bottle memory, I sauntered out once more for the park. Not five hundred yards from the camp, myself and men were suddenly halted by hearing in our immediate vicinity, probably within fifty yards or so, a chorus of roars, issuing from a triplet of lions. Instinctively my fingers raised the two hammers, as I expected a general onset on me; for though one lion might fly, it was hardly credible that three should. While looking keenly about I detected, within easy rifle-shot, a fine hartebeest, trembling and cowering behind a tree, as if it expected the fangs of the lion in its neck. Though it had its back turned to me, I thought a bullet might plough its way to a vital part, and without a moment's hesitation I aimed and fired. The animal gave a tremendous jump, as if it intended to take a flying leap through the tree; but recovering itself it dashed through the underbrush in a different direction from that in which I supposed the lions to be, and I never saw it again, though I knew I had struck it from the bloody trail it left; neither did I see nor hear anything more of the lions. I searched far and wide over the park-land for prey of some kind, but was compelled to return unsuccessful to camp.

Disgusted with my failure, we started a little after noon for Manyara, at which place we were hospitably greeted by my friend, who had sent men to tell me that his white brother must not halt in the woods but must come to his village. "We received a present of honey and food from the chief, which was most welcome to us in our condition. Here was an instance of that friendly disposition among Central African chiefs when they have not been spoiled by the Arabs, which Dr. Livingstone found among the Babisa and Ba-ulungu, and in Manyuema. I received the same friendly recognition from all the chiefs, from Imrera, in Ukawendi, to Unyanyembe, as I did from Ma-manyara.

On the 14th we arrived at Ugunda, and soon after we had established ourselves comfortably in a hut which the chief lent us for our use, in came Ferajji and Chowpereh, bringing with them Sarmean and Uledi Manwa Sera, who, it will be recollected, were the two soldiers sent to Zanzibar with letters and who should Sarmean have in charge but the deserter Hamdallah, who decamped at Manyara, as we were going to Ujiji.

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