settled down to my night of
watching, and I was soon thoroughly chilled and wet. I stuck to my
uncomfortable post, however, hoping to get a shot, but I well remember
the feeling of impotent disappointment I experienced when about
midnight I heard screams and cries and a heart-rending shriek, which
told me that the man-eaters had again eluded me and had claimed another
victim elsewhere.

At this time the various camps for the workmen were very scattered, so
that the lions had a range of some eight miles on either side of Tsavo
to work upon; and as their tactics seemed to be to break into a
different camp each night, it was most difficult to forestall them.
They almost appeared, too, to have an extraordinary and uncanny faculty
of finding out our plans beforehand, so that no matter in how likely or
how tempting a spot we lay in wait for them, they invariably avoided
that particular place and seized their victim for the night from some
other camp. Hunting them by day, moreover, in such a dense wilderness
as surrounded us, was an exceedingly tiring and really foolhardy
undertaking. In a thick jungle of the kind round Tsavo the hunted
animal has every chance against the hunter, as however careful the
latter may be, a dead twig or something of the sort is sure to crackle
just at the critical moment and so give the alarm. Still I never gave
up hope of some day finding their lair, and accordingly continued to
devote all my spare time to crawling about through the undergrowth.
Many a time when attempting to force my way through this bewildering
tangle I had to be released by my gun-bearer from the fast clutches of
the "wait-a-bit"; and often with immense pains I succeeded in tracing
the lions to the river after they had seized a victim, only to lose the
trail from there onwards, owing to the rocky nature of the ground which
they seemed to be careful to choose in retreating to their den.

At this early stage of the struggle, I am glad to say, the lions were
not always successful in their efforts to capture a human being for
their nightly meal, and one or two amusing incidents occurred to
relieve the tension from which our nerves were beginning to suffer. On
one occasion an enterprising bunniah (Indian trader) was riding along
on his donkey late one night, when suddenly a lion sprang out on him
knocking over both man and beast. The donkey was badly wounded, and the
lion was just about to seize the trader, when in some way or othe