The Yale expositor., 1897-01-29
CHAPTER III.

l6lJ OF MIN, which WAS uOJ very muSh,
in an old bread-bag, and though
whilst he lived his virtues were not
great, now that he was gone we could
have wept over him. Indeed, Harry did
weep outright; while | registered a
quiet little vow of my own account that
l would let daylight into that lioness
before l was forty-eight hours older,
If by any means it could be done.
well, we buried him, and there he
lies where lions will not trouble him
any more. So there is an end of the
book of Jim-Jim.
"The great question that now re-
NAMED was, how to circumvent his
murderess. / knew that she would re-
turn as soon as she was hungry again,
but / did not know when she would
be hungry. She had left so little of
Jim-Jim behind her that could scarce
ly expect to see her the next night,
unless she had cubs. Still, | felt that
it would not be wise to miss the chance
of her coming, so we set about to
make preparations for her reception.
The first thing we did was to strength
en- the bush wall of the skerm by
dragging a large quantity OF the tops
of thorn-trees together and laying one
on the other in such fashion that the
thorns pointed outward. This, after
our experience of the fate of Jim-Jim,
seemed very necessary precaution,
since if where one sheep can jump an
other can follow, as the Kafirs say,
how much more is 1t the case where
an animal so active and so vigorous
as the lion is concerned! And now
came the further question, how were
we to beguile the lioness to return
Lions are animals that have a strange
knack of appearing when they are not
wanted and keeping studiously out OF
the way when their presence is re-
quired.
Harry, who, as have said, was an
eminently practical boy, suggested to
Pharaoh that he should go and SIT
outside the skerm in the moonlight as
sort of a bait, assuring him that he
would have nothing to fear as we
would certainly kill the lioness before
she killed him. Pharaoh, however
strangely enough, did not seem to take
to this suggestion. Indeed, he walked
away, much put out with Harry fol
having made it.
"It gave me an idea, however.
"'Wellv / said, there is that OK. He
must die sooner or later, so we may a:
we'll utilize him.
Now, about thirty yards to the lef
of our skerm, If one stood facing dowr
the hill toward the river, was the stumI
of a tree that had been destroyed by
lightning many years before, standing
equidistantly between, but a little IN
front of. two clumps of bush, which
were severally some fifteen PAGES from
it.
Here was the very place to tie the
OK; and, accordingly a little before
sunset the poor animal was led forth
by Pharaoh and made fast there, little
knowing. poor brute, for what pur-
pose; and we commenced our long
vigil. this time without a fire, fol
our object was to attract the lioness and
not to scare her.
For hour after hour we waited
keeping ourselves awake by pinching
each other-it is, by the way, remark
able what a difference in the force oil
pinches requisite to the occasion ex.
lists in the mind of pincher and pinchet
but no lioness came. The moon
waxcd and the moon waned, and then
at last the moon went down, and dark
ness swallowed up the world, but nc
lion came to swallow us up. We wait.
ed till dawn, because we did not dare tc
go to sleep, and then at last we took
such a broken rest as we could get.
THAT morning we went out shoot.
ing, not because we wanted to, fol
we were too depressed and tired. but
| because we had no more meat. Fol
| three hours or more we wandered about
in the boiling sun looking for some.
| thing to kill, but with absolutely nc
results. For some unknown reason
| the game had grown very scarce abou
the spot, though when / was there tive
years before every sort of large game
except rhinoceros and elephant was
particularly abundant. The lions, o.
whom there were many, alone remain
ed, and / fancy that 1t was the fact o.
the game they live on having ten
porarily migrated that made them So
daring and ferocious. AS a genera
rule, a lion is an amiable ANNA
enough If he is left alone, but hungry
lion is almost as dangerous as hungr!
man. One hears a great many differ
ont opinions expressed as to whether
DR. no the lion is remarkable for hi
courage, but the result of my expert
once is that very much depends upor