From this camp I despatched Ferajji, the cook, and Chowpereh to Unyanyembe, to bring the letters and medicines that were sent to me from Zanzibar, and meet us at Ugunda, while the next day we moved to our old quarters on the Gombe, where we were first introduced to the real hunter’s paradise in Central Africa.  The rain had scattered the greater number of the herds, but there was plenty of game in the vicinity.  Soon after breakfast I took Khamisi and Kalulu with me for a hunt.  After a long walk we arrived near a thin jungle, where I discovered the tracks of several animals—­boar, antelope, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and an unusual number of imprints of the lion’s paw.  Suddenly I heard Khamisi say, “Master, master! here is a `simba!’ (lion);” and he came up to me trembling with excitement and fear—­for the young fellow was an arrant coward—­to point out the head of a beast, which could be seen just above the tall grass, looking steadily towards us.  It immediately afterwards bounded from side to side, but the grass was so high that it was impossible to tell exactly what it was.  Taking advantage of a tree in my front, I crept quietly onwards, intending to rest the heavy rifle against it, as I was so weak from the effects of several fevers that I felt myself utterly incapable of supporting my rifle for a steady aim.  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.