My four carriers had also brought a donkey with them, which they tied up to a heavy block on a flat slab of limestone which shelved down into the pool on the farther side, for we hoped thereby to attract lions; the carriers then went off to camp, and left us squatting silently in our shelter.
I describe our arrangements thus in detail because I have in this way sat out for game on scores of nights, and one description will serve for all. There is one thing I never omit, when about to spend a night in one of these jungle shelters, or when marching by night, and that is to decorate the centre rib of each of my game rifles with a long strip of snow-white foolscap paper, to assist the aim; for, however good the moonlight may be, it is impossible to see the tiny ivory foresight at night.
I sat over this pool on five successive nights. On the first night three hyænas came, but no lion or rhinoceros. The hyænas invariably came silently down to drink till they saw the living bait, and then at once took fright and galloped away; on the succeeding four nights I therefore dispensed with the bait. For two hours, after the moon rose, several wild ducks kept us interested by playing about in the water and quacking, quite unaware of our presence. I then went to sleep. We saw nothing on the next evening, and I slept all night in the shelter, waking up covered with dew at daylight, and returning, rather stiff with the exposure, to camp.
On the third night I was roused by Géli, whose eyes I could see full of excitement in the semi-darkness, and still crouching below my screen of branches, I could hear the wallowing of some heavy animal in the soft mud at the water’s edge. We were all on the alert as I gently felt for the four-bore which Hassan shoved into my hands. On cautiously poking my head above the screen, I saw the great form of a rhinoceros standing motionless as a carved sphinx in the moonlight, casting a deep black shadow upon the white rock. I stood erect, and raising my arms placed the butt of the four-bore to my shoulder. The action was seen, for the beast trotted forward a few steps, and then galloped across the slabs of rock for a path which ascended the bank on my side of the river, and led behind my shelter. I fired at his shoulder hurriedly, and, sad to say, heard no answering “tell,” showing that the bullet had not struck; and before I could look under the smoke I heard the rhinoceros, with a succession of snorts, gallop up the bank and trot behind my shelter; then all sound ceased but the animal’s breathing, which we could hear distinctly, close to and above us, only separated from us by the stout interlaced branches of the back of our “box.” We stood with rifles at the “charge,” ready to fire and throw ourselves down into the river-bed should his ugly head and horns protrude into our bower. He did not keep us in suspense long, but after listening for more than a minute, he trotted off, the sound of his footsteps getting fainter on the still night air, and eventually dying away.
The Pool at Kuredelli
On the 29th I returned to camp at sunrise, and swallowing a cup of hot coffee, which my cook, having heard the shot and divined its purport, had prepared for me, I took up the tracks with two camelmen, letting Géli and Hassan sleep in camp. We followed them till noon, the sun being fearfully hot; and either through the unskilfulness of my trackers, or through the absence of blood on the track causing me to lose heart in the fearful Jilál heat, we had to leave the trail at a stony ravine; and in the afternoon we returned to camp, tired out.
Swallowing some food, I took a short sleep; and towards sunset I went out again with Géli and Hassan into the bush to the west. Suddenly Géli pointed, and saying “Libah!” (Lions!) started to run across an open plain of bare red earth; and there, three hundred yards away, were a lioness and young lion reclining by the stem of a tall, shady thorn-tree, looking at us. I had been searching for rhinoceros, and was burdened with my double four-bore rifle, weighing twenty-two pounds, so when Géli started running he at once got ahead of me, and Hassan, carried away by the excitement, followed suit. The brutes, seeing three men running across the plain towards them, stood up, stretched themselves, and giving a toss of the tail and a savage growl, they cantered easily away across the sun-baked earth in full view, and plunged into the low mimósa jungle beyond. I ran up to Géli very much put out, and snatching my ·577 Express from his hand, and giving him the heavy rifle to retard his pace, I plunged into the bush and grass after the lions, but the grass was so thick and dry that I soon overran the almost invisible tracks, and though we made several tries back on to the red soil, we eventually lost them, and I returned to camp disgusted with the afternoon’s entertainment, and lectured my men in rather a wrathful way on the folly of out-running me.
On the next night we all awoke at the same time, while the moon was still low, having been roused by the disturbance of the pool; and we made so much noise in throwing off our blankets and getting ready that a rhinoceros, which had come down to the pool, heard us and made off. I fired the four-bore, and my bullet caught it in the shoulder, sending it galloping up the bank, snorting as before. On this night the beast waited, listening close behind my hiding-place for nearly ten minutes; then all sounds ceased, and I thought it must be dead. It had, however, slipped quietly away; so there was nothing to be done, and we went to sleep. When we woke again the moon was well up, it being about two o’clock in the morning. Géli had awakened me, having seen something pass among the bushes on our bank of the river, between my hiding-place and the camp.
The moon was throwing a fine light on the flat limestone slabs which composed the floor of the river-bed, and as we gazed in the direction in which Géli pointed, rubbing our eyes, we saw against the white background three large animals walk out from the bushes into the open near the pool; one glance told us that they were three full-grown lionesses.