carcase as a trophy of success; the other being the hunters. The leader of the expedition opened the dance, and he was followed by such of the huntsmen as had been nearest at the death; they were accompanied in their performance by the beating of a drum. The dancers next gave a representation of the lion-hunt, running in all directions, and pretending to hurl their spears; the singing was taken up by the two groups alternately, and though it was not so monotonous as some that I heard at other times, yet any melody it might have had was utterly destroyed by the painful discord of the instruments that accompanied it.
After the body of the lioness had been deposited on the ground under a mimosa, we took the opportunity of investigating the wounds. It turned out that my first bullet had passed completely along the left side of the skull, and that immediately on receiving it the wounded beast had fallen so as to leave only the lower part of its face exposed; this we had both struck, and we traced one bullet into the vertebræ of the neck, while the other, Cowley’s we presumed, had shivered the lower skull-bone to splinters.
In making my memoranda of this lion-hunt I used up the last of my writing-paper; it was some that Westbeech had torn out of his own journal and given me. It was now that I found the newspapers that I had received from Shoshong very useful; the parts that were printed on were very serviceable for pressing plants, and I was only too glad to fasten the margins together into sheets by means of mimosa-gum, and to use them for writing on.
After our hunting triumph Maranzian honoured
